The weight of if

what if I could not become the one I had always dreamed of?
what if all the versions of me I once imagined…
rot quietly in some forgotten corner of time,
staring back at me with eyes full of blame?

how will I ever forgive myself
for letting them die
without ever being born?

they say time heals
but what if time is what stole it all?
what if the world moved too fast,
and I was too slow,
too tired to keep up?

i wonder if I’ll wake one night,
older
and hear the voice of the girl I was
asking me why I gave up.
asking me why I let the world
talk her out of herself.

and I don’t know what I’ll tell her.

~reshma