(Expanded, Dual Voice Monologue)

(Older self — slow, calm)
I remember you.

(Younger self — dry laugh)
That makes one of us.

(Older)
Sitting in the dark, back against the wall.
Numb.
You said it was peace, but it wasn’t.
It was the absence of anything else.

(Younger)
It was quiet.
That was enough.

(Older)
No, it wasn’t.
You were suffocating in the quiet.
Drinking to silence the noise you wouldn’t face.

(Younger, biting)
You think I wanted this?
You think I asked for any of it?

(Older)
No. I think you broke under weight no one saw.
And I think you thought that was weakness.

(Younger)
It was weakness.
Every day was a failure I couldn’t explain.

(Older)
You called it strength—keeping it all in.
But it was fear.
You couldn’t even look in a mirror without seeing ghosts.

(Younger — quiet)
I still see them.

(Older)
So do I.
But I’ve stopped letting them speak for me.

(Younger)
They never shut up.

(Older)
They don’t have to.
You just have to stop answering.

(Younger — sarcastic)
That simple, huh?
You act like you’re so far above me now.

(Older)
Not above.
Past.
I walked through everything you left behind.
The shame. The guilt. The nights you almost didn’t survive.

(Younger)
I didn’t think we would survive.
Every morning I woke up surprised.

(Older)
And every morning, you still got up.
Even when you hated yourself for it.

(Younger)
I hated myself for everything.
For surviving when others didn’t.
For breaking when I was supposed to be the strong one.

(Older)
You were strong.
Not in the way you thought, but strong.
You lived long enough to let me exist.

(Younger)
I didn’t want you.
I wanted silence.
I wanted out.

(Older)
I know.
And I hated you for that.
For a long time.

(Pause.)

(Older)
But now I see you.
The broken, bleeding, angry version of me.
And I don’t want to destroy you anymore.

(Younger)
Then what do you want?

(Older)
To let you rest.
You did your part. You carried the pain.
You kept the body alive, even when the mind fractured.

(Younger — voice cracking)
I didn’t know how to ask for help.

(Older — soft)
I know.
And I didn’t either.
But I learned.

(Younger)
Do you still hear it?
The hum in the back of your skull? The heaviness in your chest?

(Older)
Some days.
But I know what it is now.
And I don’t run from it.

(Younger — quiet, almost a whisper)
I was scared.

(Older)
I still am.
But I’m not hiding.

(Younger)
You don’t hate me?

(Older — firm)
I hate what you went through.
But no—
I don’t hate you.
I’m here because of you.
But you don’t get the wheel anymore.

(Younger — long pause)
Then let me sleep.

(Older)
Rest.
I’ve got it from here.