I think I met regret before I met myself.
It stood in the doorway of a dream,
Pretending to be a possibility.
Maybe regret begins softly,
Like a song you skip too early
And spend the rest of your life trying to remember.
Like ghosts of futures in my spine,
Only knocking when I’m quiet,
Whispering drafts of the person I never finished being,
Asking if I still believe in becoming.
Regret doesn’t arrive with wrinkles,
It arrives with awareness.
In the stillness between “not yet” and “no longer.”
It blooms when you stop believing in infinite summers,
When you realize that even dreams have deadlines.
Youth feels counterfeit now,
Bright but already spent.
Somewhere, a younger me is still dreaming,
Not knowing I’ve already stopped.
I ask the night when regret begins.
It answers softly,
“When you start counting the stars
And realize you’ve lost the urge to name them.”