To The Girl I Was Yesterday

I bury you with all the other girls.
The other mistakes,
the other regrets and rejects,
I bury you nine feet below the ground,
covering you in grains of dirt composed of
apologies and excuses.
I leave you behind.
I don’t miss you.

I am a god composed of
a thousand reincarnations in one body.
I hunt you down, I sweep you out.
You are every version of me
that has walked before me
that has hurt and been hurt.
I sweep you under the rug and the world
shakes as I cry and I crumble.
I leave you behind.
I don’t miss you.
I should.

You dig your way out and into my ribs.
You carve bruises into my heart,
leave scars on my spine.
And I relive every mistake,
every regret and rejection.
I relive what it was like to be you and
I can’t help but sympathize with the villain
because I used to be you and
you are a villain.

I’m so tired of walking away,
so tired of running from my reflection.
With hands like spades,
I dig you back up, all of you,
every single girl I tried to kill,
every version of me that I used to be.
I dig you up and I am here,
at your feet,
begging for forgiveness,
begging for another chance
to be better than both of us.

You teach me the language of forgiveness.
I see in you a crooked smile
and an aura of anxiety
that I want to shed from myself.
I see in you a gentleness
that I am glad I have preserved.
I learn how to be better
and the guilt is not so
unbearable.

I die the moment I change,
replaced by a girl with the same face
but a better heart.
I die without guilt,
with the understanding that
with every reincarnation,
with every version of me that replaces me,
I grow better.

I know that the girl that I will be tomorrow
will not miss me.
Good.
She’ll be better
and I will stay in her graveyard of memories
to remind her
of what parts of us to keep
and what parts of us to let go.