The Nevers

Something changed your never that day.

I'll never let things get out of hand.
I'm never going to sink that low.
Never will I ever set a foot there.
I can never bring myself to ignore something like this.
I'll never get that angry.

You wished it had only been your grand nevers, but when you took the carefully measured steps that day, with a little too much concentration on how far apart they should be from each other, how upright your back needed to be in order to implicate a serious but not unhealthy posture, how you were best to pace your breathing to allow you to go steady like that for hours; on that day you knew that even the most mundane nevers like the ice cream flavours you would have had never tried or the shoe colour you would have had never worn were also taken away from you.

With hair still a little wet from having taken a thorough shower, make up a little too much for you, shirt tucked into pants a tad unrealistically evenly, and mismatching earrings, you summoned the courage you had never had before that day and walked into a world that had stripped you off of all your nevers, where anything could become of you and where you could become anything.

Something of you was sealed away forever.