I stopped roaming the side streets after dark. I made my own rules and tucked myself into a house two towns away from where I grew up. People ask me where I’ve been for all these years and I can’t even answer. I feel the days bleed into weeks. Time haunts me in ways I can’t speak of. I remember the grown ups saying this when I was younger and I feel every bit of it. I carry grief and it’s written all over every word I say. I can’t go to the neighborhood bar anymore because everything makes me feel sick. My mind plays moments of sadness on loop and I study every detail until I can make sense of it. The world split me open and I never fully healed – but maybe that’s the beauty in pain. I’m all sorts of boring and sometimes that looks like peace. I try to find solitude in the nighttime. It’s the only time where I can soak in the moonlight and romanticize the feeling of girlhood and what it all meant to me. I wonder if anyone else longs for those moments how I do. Maybe they just sleep the day away in order to forget. -AMT©️