What could’ve been

What could’ve been is no longer within reach—not because you didn’t care, but because the moment has passed. Irrevocably. The window that once stood wide open, inviting action, honesty, connection—it’s shut now. Quietly, completely. You had the chance to speak your mind, to take that walk, to clean up your room, to finish that assignment, to say something meaningful when it mattered most. But you didn’t. And now, those moments have dissolved into the past, unreachable and unchangeable. Maybe you try to convince yourself there’s still a way to make it right, to make up for what was lost. But deep down, in the quietest parts of your heart, you know you can’t—not fully. Not really.

The sting of wasted time sits heavily on your chest. You think of the days that slipped through your fingers, hours spent in the same four lonely corners of your room, watching shadows move across the walls while doing nothing to change the situation. You remember, in vivid detail, the pattern of poor choices—the impulsive ones, the passive ones, the ones that felt right in the moment but left you hollow afterward. They replay in your mind like old films you never asked to watch again. And no matter how long it might take to rewind it all, to go back and rewrite even a single chapter, you can’t. In the stillness of your room, in the defying dull hum of silence, you feel the weight of the situation pressing in. The isolation becomes almost physical, with each wall a mirror reflecting on everything you avoided facing. Regret lingers in the air like dust—settling on memories, on words left unsaid, on relationships that could have been mended if only you’d acted sooner and hadn’t turned away.

You wish you'd reached out. You wish you'd stayed close to the ones who mattered. You wish you’d been braver, kinder, more open. Maybe then, you wouldn’t be here—surrounded by silence, trying to fill the emptiness with daydreams. Maybe then you’d have someone to talk to about why you didn’t get up when you were supposed to. And so, you do just that. You wrap yourself tightly in a pillow, and your thoughts begin to drift—away from what is, toward what could’ve been. You escape into imagined memories, some real, others lovingly invented. Scenes stitched together from fragments of longing. In some, you're part of the family you always needed. In others, you're the one providing what you never received. Sometimes it's your actual family, only this time, everything turns out okay. No shouting. No silence. Just warmth. Just love. You build these mental sanctuaries not to lie to yourself, but to survive. To remember what hope feels like. You disappear into your inner world—a world others may mock or fail to understand. But in that place, everything makes sense. There, you are seen, understood, whole. And for a while, that’s enough. But eventually, even dreams have an expiration point. Slowly, the regret seeps back in like cold air under a door. Still, none of that changes the ache that rises when you return to reality—the present, with all its emptiness and unspoken grief. The silence is louder now. And even though you know the past can’t be reclaimed, part of you still aches for the chance to try.