To be haunted,
especially by the past,
is like living with ghosts.

You become a shell of yourself,
not even knowing who you used to be.
Everything feels blurry,
faded,
and runs together.

There’s no beginning nor end.

To anything.

Then,
there comes a day,
a moment even,
when you are reminded
of your true self.

You feel alive again,
and you can’t believe
you had been living that way
for so long.

Not realizing until now that so many parts of you went dark.

Dead almost.

The ghosts of your past,
the weight of your trauma,
fade just enough
for you to breathe deep again.

You still have a long way to go.
But you feel stronger now.
Ready to face
the demons that creep in
during the darkest of moments.

Then the next time,
when those thoughts come back,
they aren’t as strong as before.

They loosen their hold on you a little.

Just enough to feel it inside.

You hold onto this feeling,
despite knowing it most likely will slip away.

But as long as you’re better off
than you were before,
that’s all that matters.

Healing isn’t linear,
and even the slowest,
smallest progress
should never be dismissed.

Life begins to feel brighter,
and somehow,
that’s enough.

Things carry meaning
they never had before.

And when you wake up each morning,
you no longer cry
at the realization
that you are still breathing.

You’re smiling instead.

Because life is beautiful.

Without darkness, there would be no light.

And that is everything sometimes.