The Past - A Start

To look only behind you is a painful existence. There is a reason that my grandmother will not speak of her history, of the trauma that gripped her childhood. The future is brighter, the time to come more opportunistic than the time before. She would press her palm to my cheek.

"Don't forget it."

For months now, I have forgotten what comes next. For months been unable to plan or predict. I see only the rubble that rubs off my feet at each bus stop, each train stop, each rest stop on this path. Exhausting, it is always, this neck turned behind me. It feels as though I walk towards the past, not away from it. My chest tight, near bursting with the pressure of my shirt buttons and the weight of last Monday.