The Places I Hide

There are places I hide

that no one knows about—

not rooms,

not addresses,

not somewhere you could find

with a map.

I mean the places

inside myself.

The quiet corners

where I keep old heartbreaks,

old mistakes,

old versions of me

that never learned

how to let go.

I visit them more often

than I should.

When the night gets long.

When the house gets quiet.

When a memory

catches me off guard

and suddenly

I’m years behind myself again.

That’s the thing about healing—

people think it’s a straight road.

It isn’t.

It’s circling back

to wounds you thought were closed

and finding out

they still know your name.

It’s carrying ghosts

without inviting them

to stay.

And some days

I get tired.

Tired of being strong.

Tired of rebuilding.

Tired of learning

the same lessons

in different disguises.

But even then—

even in the places I hide—

there’s a part of me

that keeps the light on.

A stubborn little thing

that refuses

to abandon itself.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe healing

isn’t about never hiding.

Maybe it’s about

finding your way back out

every single time.