The Burden of Conviction
I am in the woods.
It is dark, bitterly cold, and the only sound that exists is the echo of my own steps against the damp earth.
I feel fragile—almost hollow—but I have no choice other than to keep walking.
There is nowhere to return to. Only forward.
I do not know where I am meant to go. I am lost… and yet, I am searching.
Time has dissolved here.
Or perhaps… it is I who has dissolved within it.
I begin to run.
Through the rain, relentless and cold, soaking through my skin as if trying to reach my bones.
Branches scratch against me, the wind howls, but I don’t stop. I can’t.
And then… I see it.
Hidden beneath broken branches, there it is.
Damaged.
Cold.
Fragile.
So weak it cannot even cry for help…
but I know—if it could, it would be screaming.
A deep sorrow floods me, so heavy it almost brings me down with it. In tears.
I have no strength left… and yet, I am the only one who can save it.
So I fall to my knees, onto the wet grass, the cold seeping into my skin.
My hands tremble as I reach for it.
And when I touch it—
the pain is unbearable. I am shaking. I found it.
It is where I still bleed. It is my heart.
-
Today, I heard your name…
and I felt it again.
That sharp, sudden pang—like something reopening from within.
I am not in love with you anymore.
And yet, my body remembers what my mind has already let go.
Since that moment, I can’t sleep.
Your name lingers in the air like a ghost I did not invite.
I do not want to speak of you, not out of bitterness, but because you no longer deserve a place in my voice, nor in the quiet spaces of my mind.
My heart is still healing.
And even the slightest touch—
a word, a memory, a whisper of what once was—
feels like pressing on a wound
that has not yet learned how to close.
-
