The Ghosts I Carry

My Roman Empire isn’t some distant history—it’s everything. Every moment, every memory, every version of me that ever existed. I don’t move on. I archive. I replay. I let the echoes of the past settle into the corners of my mind like dust in an old cathedral.

A song, a scent, a passing thought—I am right back there. Back to the things I should have said, the things I should have done differently. Regret doesn’t knock; it walks in like it owns the place. Nostalgia lingers like a ghost, whispering that maybe the past was kinder than I remember.

Some people rebuild. I excavate. I dig through the ruins of every heartbreak, every almost, every version of myself I thought I’d left behind. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe some of us aren’t meant to let go. Maybe we’re meant to carry—to hold onto the past, not as chains, but as proof that we lived, that we felt, that every version of us still lingers, waiting to be remembered.