Dear 7 Year Old Me
Dear 7 year old me, I miss you. I miss the smile that shone upon your face every morning when you met your friends and family. I miss the sound of that carefree laughs which used to ring through the empty hallways. I miss the days when you were so exuberant that you couldn’t sit straight for a minute. I miss your hugs. I miss the mischief you got into when you were experimenting and trying to have fun. I miss the groggy grin you had when you opened your eyes early in the morning. The grin which faded with each passing day and is now just a tired,limp smile because of another sleepless night. I miss the good old days. I just miss you.... Before I begin telling you about how life will change, let me just confess that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the pain and suffering you'll have to endure. I’m sorry for all the times when you’ll have to be around toxic people because I didn’t have the courage to push them away. I’m sorry that you’ll lose people who genuinely care about you because I didn’t know the difference between real and fake. I’m sorry for everything. I won’t stall around more now. In a few years or so, you'll start feeling that something or the other is out of place and when you won’t be able to figure it out, you’ll start to blame yourself. You might start thinking that it is you who is wrong and that you don’t belong where you should. Your demons might come and haunt you in the places where you should've felt most at peace. There will be days when you will feel the need to be busy all the time because if you ever slow down, if you even pause for a second, you’d have to start feeling all the emotions you locked out in a dungeon in the back of your mind along with all the negatives and insecurities, those same insecurities which will lead to sleepless nights with a pillow soaked with tears and screams left unheard because to me, I was never good enough. To me, I was just another puzzle whose pieces didn’t seem to fit together, and it didn’t make sense anymore, I didn’t make sense anymore. Because how can you escape something that lives in your head and feeds off of your thoughts. My thoughts are compromised but you have to move on, you have to fight the urge to surrender to them. The most difficult times will be the nights when the wolf inside you shrinks to nothing, she bares her teeth and runs away. The dragon in your chest rejects you because she’s so tired of being slain. These are the same nights when the lioness cowers because she can’t fight for another day. And the phoenix? She used to whisper, ”just wait, we’ll rise again”, but now, now she just sits in darkness with no more words left to be said. She just sits there and waits. She waits for you to gather your strength to fight one more time. She waits for you. Because you too are like her, your demons may insult you, burn you, injure you or even defeat you but can never destroy you. Because like a phoenix, you can resurrect. You can and you will rise again from the ashes of your remains because you are stronger than the ghosts that haunt you. You’re stronger than I can ever be. You are an angel, darling, and all that is left to do is fight the devil inside of you. I believe in you. I believe in us.
All my love, You
Written by Shivangi Srivastava
->Best Submission- Time Shall Tell- April 2020