Creative Writing

Chained down and unable to move.
As if all hope to escape is lost.
She sits there, motionless.
Exhibiting no attempt to break free.
Not a single effort to liberate herself.
Or maybe perhaps,
she simply does not want to move?
A prisoner of her own past.
It seems she does not want to accept the gifts of tomorrow.
She chooses not to look forward.
She cannot leave behind all that she had done.
All that had happened.
All that she was.
These chains wrap around her so tightly.
And she hugs them with all her might.
She’s afraid of change,
So she stays there.
In that dark, desolate, lonesome, miserable, Godforsaken place.
Embracing the chains of the past that deeply sink into her skin.
For so long did I stay beside her.
Trying to mend her broken state.
Trying to convince her to let go of these chains,
But she denies herself of freedom.
And so I said,
“I have to leave you now.
Because I cannot move forward if I choose to stay here with you.
I’ll leave the you of the past,
to save you in the present.
You’ll understand why in the near future.
Goodbye,
My old self.”

- Dianne Grace Bautista