your baggage
is too heavy to carry around.
dragging it around with you
will eventually cause
your suitcase to tear apart
and your old sorrows
will tumble out
faster than you neatly folded 
and tucked them away
in the first place.

the ghosts of your past
that still whisper to you
when all is silent and black
must be drowned,
killed for good.
just because
you can’t see them as well anymore
doesn’t make them any less real.
(after all,
translucent hauntings
are quite the inconvenience.)

the empty shell
of the being you once were
must be promptly smashed
and dusted away
with a broom and pan.
there’s no need
to keep a souvenir around
to plague you of your old self.
you are not
who you were
and that is that.

don’t let
the remnants 
of your haunted past win.
you have grown.
you have flourished.
you have emerged from
the ashes.

brand yourself
a survivor,
not a victim.