It wasn't the same.

It was all the same yet, nothing was the same. The halls seemed narrower yet they were still halls. The windows omitted the same light, yet the color in which the light appears was significantly different. Brighter, darker. Light none the less. Nights felt different too. The dark was the dark, yet the way it settled onto your chest varied. Maliscous it once was, cautious it was now. Unbearable it began, subtle it became. Perhaps it had grown weary of me as I had grown. Perhaps it became threatened by what I pit against it. Perhaps there were now two darknesses in my room.  It was all different. I had replaced my memories with that of space in which new memories could be made. Odd, I thought. Years and years in once place, yet a sliver of that in another and I begin to forget. Had I grown careless with my own mind? Had I stopped challenging my mind to think for itself? Had I ultimately been the un-doer of my own past? It was there. Etched into my history, forever unchanged. But it was fading. Recalling the once second nature knowledge became a neccessary search through my own archives. I found myself struggling to stay afloat in my own past and the memories that engulfed it. It was the same. The way I walked in and felt the walls and ceilings protect me from the outside. Sometimes the way it could protect me from the inside. Perhaps we had brought too many of our insides with us here. I could still sense it though. The urge to protect. Such safety I once knew I learned. I sought out. Why? Because it was the same. Because it wasn't the same. Because we change. Perhaps we can only rely on others protection so much. Perhaps that's what I learned here. Perhaps that's what I learned there, now. I could hear cars, much like before. I never realized how similar the sounds were. Perhaps that is why I never took notice. Because it felt the same.  I wondered what the cars thought as they drove by. I wondered where they were going, the journeys in which they embarked on. Perhaps I wondered of their own change. The sames and differences of their lives now. Perhaps I gained perspective in my wonder. Knowing that every adventure each person in this world tackles, they must face what I face. We are all the same, yet we are different. I wondered if they knew how thankful I was for their sound, and it's soothing familiarity. I wonder if they knew the favor they were doing by just being the same. I traced the ceiling, breathing, thinking. How did it all get here? How did I get here? I was the same, yet I wasn't the same. Perhaps that is neccessary for getting here. For getting life. For getting me. Walking through narrower halls, looking at a different light. Embracing the darkness inside, and utilizing the light. Perhaps I wasn't the same. I wasn't the same, because the same had changed, and I was a warrior.

.K SG C.