“ I DID SURVIVE BUT WHAT A SAD VICTORY ”
The wind slips through my hair. Music blares in my ears, They said it might rain tonight but I came anyway, I had to see this rooftop one last time.
It’s been five years, There was a time when this place just this was enough to make me feel whole again. But tonight, standing here, I realize it isn’t anymore. Still mine but it was yours too & you’re gone.
Lately, my days have been awful, I don’t know where I stand. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing I don’t even know if any of it means something.
I can’t remember when it all started to shift Or where I went wrong. But the worst part? I don’t think I can go back. I don’t think I want to.
I look like someone who has it all together, But if anyone saw me right now, really looked they’d know. The truth is quieter than people think: The hope? The will to keep trying? Gone.
People like to say I made it. That I survived as if surviving is something clean as if it didn’t cost anything but they don’t know what I had to do to get here, Yes, I survived but I paid for it with parts of myself I’ll never get back.
I watch people passing by strangers with lives, Lately I’ve started to believe fate might’ve cheated me, none of them look stronger or better or braver but they have their joy, Their peace. Their people.
And I wonder why didn’t I get to keep mine? I paid for every moment & still, I was left with nothing.
Would it have been different if someone were here beside me? Would I be laughing? Would I be crying? Would I still feel like I’m holding my breath underwater?
I don’t know., Maybe I should stop asking, stop hoping, stop filling the silence with made-up futures to survive the absence of what never came.
The man I’ll never meet. The life I’ll never live. The world I only knew in dreams.
