Do they ache
in the quiet
where my name once breathed?

Do their shadows stretch
toward mine
in sleep?

Or am I
the only echo
chasing its own sound?

It knocked
softly
a breath at the door
but I
bolted the windows
and swallowed the key.

It came wearing warmth,
but I mistook it
for fire,
for teeth,
for grief with a new face.

So I fled,
faster than joy
could reach out its hand
afraid it might feel
like home.

I am a key, broken,
with no lock that fits me.

I lay at night with no one to hold.
I am missing that one touch.
Am I just too much—
too much, too little, too broken?

I am a broken key,
with no lock that fits me.

I lay at night, all alone.
I have so much love in my life,
but I miss that one vital part—
that element, that touch.

I feel so broken, so lost.
Am I so unlovable
that no one wants me?
Many loves,
but I am not
anyone’s special one.

I am a broken key,
with no lock that fits me.

She blooms where grief forgets to sleep,
beneath the sallow hush of twilight trees—
a flare of red in softened ash,
the last confession of the breeze.

Petals curled like whispered sins,
each one a blade of memory—
a wound too pretty to regret,
too sacred to let bleed freely.

She doesn’t seek the sun like roses do.
No, she is the flame of parting steps—
ephemeral,
like the breath between
goodbye
    and
      gone.

Born of myth and muddy water,
they say she grows where spirits roam—
a guardian of thresholds,
the keeper of the in-between,
wearing sorrow like a crown
no one dares remove.

And still,
   she rises.
Not for life,
but to remind the world:
some things only bloom
      in farewell.