Where do we go from here?

cause of death: nostalgic melancholy

looking back on old photos of yourself is an act of mourning, always. how many times have you looked at pictures of yourself from even just a few months ago and thought “who is that? did i look like that? she’s beautiful” but fail to reconcile it with how you felt. that girl is me and that girl is beautiful but i have never been her, y’know? and the cycle is endless. i am always longing to be myself from two years ago, or six months ago, or last night. SHE was beautiful in ways i don’t know how to be now. i’m grieving for the death of my past selves, constantly, and grieving for the time they wasted mourning THEIR predecessors when they could’ve been feeling beautiful. in between disparaging remarks about the weight she holds around her midsection, my mother shows me photos from when she was younger and handles them gently; “i was kind of a looker back then, wasn’t i?” i wonder what i’ll be saying about this body in thirty years. i wonder if it’ll be kind