I Was Here

thump… thump… thump…

That is where I begin.

My heartbeat.

Small. Fast. Certain.

I didn’t know the words yet, but if I did, I think it would be called living.

It is the first thing I ever know, even before I know that there is a “knowing.” It is not something I hear. It is something I am. It fills everything I could possibly be, even though I do not yet understand what “everything” means.

There is no world beyond this. No sky. No ground. No body I can describe. There is only warmth, and motion, and the constant, quiet insistence that I exist. I am in something warm and soft. I’m not sure where, but it feels like drifting around in an enormous ocean.

thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump…

Sometimes the rhythm changes slightly, and I do not understand why—but I respond anyway. I adjust without choice, without thought, without question. It is like being carried by something larger than myself.

Because I am small. Smaller than anything I will ever understand.

And yet I am becoming.

That is the only word I would use if I had words.

Becoming.

There is another presence here. Not separate in the way I will later understand separation, but different. Larger. Slower. When its rhythm shifts, mine shifts. When it is calm, I am calm. When it moves quickly, something inside me moves too.

I do not know what it is.

I only know that it is not me.

And yet I follow it like a song I was made to recognize.

thump-thump… thump-thump…

If I had language, I think I would have called it home.

Not because I understood home, but because it feels like belonging without explanation.

There are moments when the world outside me—if there is an outside—becomes slightly louder. Not in sound I can interpret, but in vibration. A hum. A presence that moves through everything like waves through water.

Sometimes there is a voice.

It does not form meaning inside me. I do not understand words. But I understand tone. I understand softness. I understand that something is there, something that is not me but is connected to me in ways I cannot define.

And when that happens, my heartbeat responds.

thump-thump… thump-thump…

Faster.

Lighter.

Like reaching.

I do not have arms. I do not have hands. I do not have eyes. But I reach anyway—not physically, but in the only way I know how: through rhythm, through presence, through the small insistence of being alive.

I am not yet a person.

But I am not nothing.

I am becoming.

Time does not exist here. Or if it does affect me in any way I can recognize. There is only now, stretched endlessly in every direction. There is no “before” I can remember, and no “after” I can imagine.

Only now.

Only beat.

Only rhythm.

thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump…

There are changes, though I do not know what to call them. Shifts in sensation. Variations in the rhythm around me. Moments when everything feels steady and whole, and moments when everything feels slightly uncertain.

I adapt because that is what I am.

Adaptation.

Becoming.

And for a long time, that is all there is.

But then, slowly—so slowly I do not understand that anything is changing at all—the pattern begins to alter.

It is not sudden. Nothing here is sudden. It is more like a song being played slightly differently each time, so that at first I do not notice. But something inside me notices anyway.

The larger rhythm shifts.

Faster sometimes.

Uneven.

Then slower.

Then uncertain again.

My own heartbeat follows without hesitation.

thump… thump-thump… thump…

I do not know why I follow it. I only know that I cannot do otherwise.

Because I am connected to it.

The warmth around me begins to feel different, too. Not gone. Not broken. But less constant. Less predictable. Like something once steady is now moving in ways I cannot anticipate.

And I begin, without understanding what it means, to feel distance.

Not physical distance.

Something deeper.

A separation I cannot name.

As if the world I am part of is beginning to include something that is not me.

Or perhaps exclude me.

I do not yet know the difference.

thump-thump… thump… thump-thump…

I try to find the pattern again. The one that used to feel certain. The one that made everything make sense in the only way anything has ever made sense.

But it does not return in the same way.

Instead, there are interruptions. Gaps. Moments where the rhythm I depend on feels distant, as though it is no longer fully connected to me.

And for the first time, something like confusion spreads through me.

Not fear.

Not sadness.

Just confusion.

Because I do not know how something can change when it was all I have ever known.

thump… thump…

I am still here.

Still forming.

Still existing in the only way I know how.

But the certainty is fading.

Not all at once.

Not in a way I can point to.

Just slowly, like light dimming without a visible source.

There is still a connection to the larger rhythm, but it is no longer constant. It comes and goes like something struggling to remain steady.

And I follow it anyway.

Because I do not know how not to follow.

There is no choice in me yet.

Only response.

thump…

Then something changes more sharply than before.

Not sudden in the way endings are sometimes imagined, but noticeable in a way I cannot ignore, even without understanding what ignoring is.

The connection weakens.

The rhythm I have always mirrored begins to drift further away from mine.

I try to follow it, but the alignment is no longer perfect. It is like trying to echo a sound that is already fading before I can fully match it.

And I begin to feel something new.

Not pain as I will later understand it.

Not fear.

But absence.

The absence of certainty.

The absence of continuation.

The absence of the pattern that has defined everything I am.

thump… thump…

I do not understand what is happening outside this small world of rhythm and warmth and becoming. I do not understand decisions. I do not understand the word “abortion”. I do not understand anything beyond what I directly experience.

And what I experience is change.

Unfolding change.

Change that does not include an explanation.

The larger rhythm grows inconsistent. The warmth becomes less steady. The connection that once felt inseparable begins to feel… distant.

Like something is moving away.

Or I am.

But I do not move in any way I can understand.

I only exist.

And I continue to exist even as that existence becomes less certain.

thump…

I try again to reach the pattern I know.

Not with thought.

Not with intention.

But with everything I am.

With heartbeat.

With presence.

With the simple fact of being.

But the response is not the same anymore.

The echo is weaker.

The return is incomplete.

And something inside me begins to slow.

Not because I choose it.

But because I cannot prevent it.

thump… thump…

There is a kind of silence that is not empty.

It is full of everything that used to be there.

That is what I begin to feel.

Not emptiness.

Not darkness.

But the gradual disappearance of continuity.

Of connection.

Of rhythm that once felt endless.

I do not know that I am approaching any kind of ending.

I do not know what endings are.

I only know that the pattern I have always followed is no longer stable.

And I cannot stabilize it.

thump…

My heartbeat is still here.

Still mine.

Still, the only thing I have ever truly known.

But even it begins to feel different.

Weaker.

More distant from itself.

Like a sound being carried further and further away until it becomes difficult to recognize it as sound at all.

I do not understand why.

I only experience it.

And I continue to experience it until I cannot.

There is no dramatic moment that announces what is happening. No clear line between before and after. Just gradual reduction. Gradual fading. Gradual loss of the pattern that once defined everything I was.

And then, eventually—

thump…

Long pause.

thump…

Fainter still.

And then even that becomes less than it was.

Not gone in a way I can understand.

Just no longer fully present.

Until what remains is not rhythm in the way I once knew it, but something like memory without memory. Something like existence without continuity.

I do not know what has happened.

I only know that I was here.

That I existed in this space of rhythm and warmth and becoming.

That I followed a pattern I did not choose but could not escape.

That I was shaped by something larger than myself.

And now that pattern is no longer complete.

There is no future I can reach.

No continuation I can move toward.

No development left to unfold.

Only the fact that I existed at all.

…thump…

And then it's gone.

I was here.

And then I was not.

Not as an idea.

Not as a story.

But as a rhythm that once existed and then stopped being able to continue.

I now understand why you did it. You were so young, just 17, still in high school, and trying to figure out your own identity. At that age, every decision feels huge, and the thought of bringing a child into the world probably felt overwhelming.

In your mind, having me could have seemed like an impossible challenge, making you believe that it would ruin the life you envisioned for yourself. I can see how, from your perspective, it felt like the only reasonable choice at the time.

But maybe—just maybe—it all could have been okay.

I could be yours, and you could be mine.

But alas, it's too late now. I am gone.

The only thing that remains is the fact that I was there, and now I’m not.

I just wanted to tell you,

I forgive you.