a soft memory of who we were before the performance

.
.
we were living, not proving

I think about those days sometimes
the ones before we cared how we looked
before we checked ourselves through a screen
before we shaped our lives for an audience we didn’t ask for

back then
we didn’t rush to be seen
we just were

when mornings were just mornings

.
.
the day didn’t start with a camera

we woke up slow
let the light find us
let the world be quiet for a bit

no pressure to capture it
no need to make it aesthetic
no thought of
will this look good later

it was just a morning
soft
simple
ours

when friendships lived offline

.
.
we showed up, not posted up

we didn’t need proof we were together
no group photos
no matching poses
no “wait, one more”

we laughed
we talked
we existed in the same space
without thinking about how it looked

the memory was enough

when we weren’t performing our lives

.
.
we didn’t curate, we just lived

there was no silent checklist
no mental editing
no pressure to be interesting

we didn’t compare our days
to strangers we’d never meet
we didn’t measure our worth
by how visible we were

we were allowed to be quiet
allowed to be small
allowed to be real

when the world felt slower

.
.
life moved at the speed of our hearts

we noticed things
tiny things
the way sunlight hit the floor
the way a breeze felt on a tired afternoon
the way time stretched
when no one was asking for our attention

we weren’t rushing
we weren’t performing
we weren’t trying to be seen

we were just here

and maybe

.
.
we can still live like that sometimes

even now
with the noise
with the feeds
with the endless scroll

there are moments
soft ones
quiet ones
where we can step back into that old world

the one where being alive
was enough