Someday, I will finally run away.

Ever since I was young, the world has never been good towards me.

I endured being an adult in a child’s body, bearing responsibilities far beyond what I can bear. I endured witnessing everything I never should have witnessed, situations that are now stuck in the back of my soul.

I endured hearing the things I never should’ve heard, words that still echo in my head until this day. I held the people who should’ve been the ones holding me, with my little arms embracing the burdens. I had to put my own grief and pain aside to manage theirs.

And to think that I was a child, I am now full of anger, and yet despite everything, I do not want to blame them for not being able to protect me, I do not and I never want to blame them for the world’s cruelty, they did what they could with what they had.

If I am hurt, I am sure that they are also hurt multiple times more. I am sure they suffered a lot more. Their hearts are heavy with the weight of their own despair, and I understood that.

So, all I want is to run away, I want to escape this cycle of pain and sorrow.

I want to find a place where I can breathe, where the weight of the world does not press down on my shoulders. I want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, to taste freedom on my lips. I want to run away to a place where I can find peace, where I can lay down my burdens and rest.

But even as I dream of running away, I know that I carry my past with me.

It is embedded through my blood. It is a part of who I am. And so, I run not to forget, but to find solace. I run not to escape but to find a new beginning.

I run because I must, because staying is too painful, because staying is too suffocating.

And maybe, just maybe, in running, I might find the remedy for my pain.

I might forgive not just the world’s cruelty but myself for all the times I couldn’t be strong enough, for all the times I tripped and fell. Perhaps in running away, I will find a way to be free.