After

On the Road

The road calls you out of the familiar.

Not an excuse.
Not a trial.
Not a confession.
I erase nothing —
I choose to let it go.

I wasn't born into empty space —
I inherited a time and place,
Someone else's footsteps at my back,
Someone else's fault inside the cracks.

They gave me words
I never chose,
And handed me the weight
Of debts I never owed.

I watched them teach us
To love the past like chains,
Till memory became a mold
For manufacturing pain.

I won't raise their banner,
I won't inherit their fight,
I'm not the next link in their pain —
Not a vessel for a past that isn't mine.

I never chose my starting point,
But I can choose my stride.
I don't rewrite what came before —
I simply step outside.

I walk out of the past
With no anger, with no flag.
I take the world for what it is,
Not dividing white from black.

I don't erase the pain —
I just won't live in its wake.
I choose a future of my own,
Not the sorrow I inherit and repeat.

I need no enemy
To tell me who I am.
I need no scream
To hear and understand.

Forgiveness isn't weakness —
It's a doorway from the night,
Not a gift to those behind us —
But a choice for who we'll be in time.

I don't erase the guilt of history,
I simply set it down.
So tomorrow won't become
Yesterday in different clothes.

If the world was broken,
I won't break another part.
If they answered with a scream,
I'll answer from the heart.

I walk out of the past
Without hatred, without blame.
Not because I choose forgetting —
But so we don't become the same.

I take the world
For what it is today.
I don't want to build against —
I want to build beyond the pain.

I don't disown it.
I don't defend it.
I don't pass it on.

End of transmission.
Beginning of the road.