Because of Where I've Been

"I don't look like you anymore,"
a voice came from the corner — just under the window, near the wall where the paint has given up trying to hide its age.

The new one stood tall.
A fresh coat. No scratches. No stains.

I used to be like that — the new tile, the spotless wall, the unused school bench. But years happened. Life happened. And now, I carry weight.

This bench?
Names scratched during boring classes, love stories that started with a single initial, heartbreaks that ended with another, poems written in tiny handwriting when no one was looking.

This schoolbag?
One strap hanging by a single stitch, zippers that get stuck halfway.
Half-eaten parathas wrapped in old newspaper, secret birthday notes, and last-minute assignments handed in with more hope than marks.

These cracked walls?
They've heard fights over the TV remote, and the silence that followed.
They've seen Diwalis lit with borrowed diyas, birthdays with reused balloons taped to the same corners every year.
They've stood quietly in the background of family photos, Sunday mopping days, and those solo midnights when tears were easier than words.

This book?
Pages dog-eared at favourite lines. pen doodles filling the empty spaces, tear stains where she couldn't stop reading the same sentence again and again.
It's not clean. But it's lived.

"I'm torn," I said. "I don't shine anymore."
"I know," the new one smiled. "But that's the point. You've been through things I haven't. You've carried the moments that made you who you are. Without these marks, you wouldn't be you. And without you, I wouldn't know what to become."

I looked at the cracks again.
Not as flaws, but as fingerprints of time — proof I've been leaned on, loved, trusted, and tested.

You may not look new. But everything you are today is because of where you've been. Love that. Because without where you've been, there is no you.