You can’t go home again.
And things will never be the way they were.
Those memories will always remain
The ones that painfully birthed you
Into a new version of life
And, standing there, you feel your fingers reach,
Almost without calculated thought,
Towards that life you had “before,”
Elusive, though, because you can’t go back.
You can’t undo the pain.
You can’t erase what has been written.
The events will remain–
Shaping you
Straining you
Staining you
Stifling you
Staying you when you want to step
Shutting you when you want to shout
There is a blend of wary and weary in your eyes now,
And maybe you know that,
So maybe it’s just easier to not look in to anything
Too deeply.
Fueled pauses.
Second guesses.
Frightful “what if’s.”
As the lived instances remind you again about
how
it
hurt
the last time you took that risk
the last time you let your hopes up
the last time you dared to jump, both feet, into a dream.
Breathe, human, breathe.
We can never return to where we were before
The pain is too deep
It changed us
We are different now.
Could this be the death of the seed,
Before cracking towards a flower?
This is your life now,
Forever tainted with the days of the deepest hurt.
We can’t reach back to the innocent “before.”
We walked here, maybe unknowingly, but on our own two feet.
This is your life now
With battle scars and PTSD from all you’ve seen.
And you get to decide
If this will stop you
Or if you’ll go on.
On and on with the little steps,
Maybe imperceptible to others,
But monumental to you.
Steps that say, “I wish tomorrow would be better,
And I will walk in that hope.”
Your little steps, soldier,
Are some of the boldest acts of bravery
This world has ever witnessed.
Carry on, comrade, carry on.
I need you here, too.
We can limp
Together.