The Shape of Who We Became
I. @ashesinverses
The mirror holds a stranger,
but everyone else calls it me.
A reflection of gone days,
I don’t even remember.
So I move through familiar streets,
invisible in the skin they remember,
trying to find a hidden spot,
far away from the words
they use as ammunition.
They don’t know me anymore,
still they pretend they do,
clinging to the picture of the old me,
pale colors,
cracked canvas,
outdated,
shutting their eyes
whenever they see me.
They don’t want to see or hear,
like I just speak against a wall,
my voice fading,
my body empty,
while they call me names,
that aren’t even mine.
I am a story rewritten,
but everyone reads the old chapters
over and over again,
as if they could never tire of the old lines.
Every glance meets a face frozen in time,
an ice sculpture I can’t recognize,
unaware of who I’ve become.
Somewhere between who I was
and who I am,
I wait to be understood,
but even my old version
seemed to be incomprehensible.
Me,
trapped in a glass dome,
shielded from everyone.
II. @traveledlight
I see the way
you look at yourself—
like something misplaced,
like a name
that no longer fits.
They call you
by what you used to be,
hold you
to a version of you
that no longer breathes.
I know that feeling—
being split
between who I was
and who I am becoming,
judged
for what I left behind.
But I have danced
with my demons,
bled through tears—
I have become
something unrecognizable.
A version of myself
that should have been met
at the right time.
I don’t wear
the name of my past—
it no longer breathes.
And I won’t wait
for anyone
to catch up
to the shape
I’ve grown into.
So hear me—
you are not
the reflection
they hold onto.
You are
everything
that came after.
And maybe
they don’t recognize you—
because you survived
something
they never saw.
