There’s a hallway in me
I don’t walk anymore.
Peeling wallpaper,
footsteps that don’t echo right.
I think you were there once,
or maybe I placed you there,
like a candle in a burned-out house.

The mind is a liar
with a soft voice.
It tells me we laughed
in that room where the screaming happened.
It paints smiles
over broken teeth.
It places hands on my shoulder
and forgets they used to bruise.

I remember a lullaby
stitched from silence.
I remember warmth,
but maybe it was fever.
Maybe it was blood.
Maybe it was survival
pretending to be love.

Photos rot in the drawer.
I touch the faces like I’m blind,
trying to recognize
which ones were real
and which ones wore me
like a mask.

There are days
when I almost miss it.
Not the pain,
but the clarity of it.
Now it’s just fog,
a theater of soft lies
replaying
with the volume turned low.

I smile sometimes,
but it’s reflex,
like a corpse twitching
as the nerves forget
they’re not alive.

I’ve stood at the edge
of so many beginnings—
just close enough to taste them,
never close enough to stay.
The door always slightly ajar,
never open.
I want to be more than a shadow of almost.

People call me potential,
but never presence.
A promise, not a person.
Their faith feels like fog—
thin and disappearing
the moment I reach for it.
I want to be more than a shadow of almost.

I speak like I know who I am,
but the echo doesn’t agree.
My words crumble in my mouth
before they ever build meaning.
Even my hope sounds rehearsed.
I want to be more than a shadow of almost.

I dream in color,
but live in grayscale.
My hands stretch forward
but always fall short—
of the vision,
of the version
of me I thought I’d be by now.
I want to be more than a shadow of almost.

So I write.
I bleed ink and silence
trying to draw a shape
that feels like truth.
And maybe one day,
I’ll look back
and see I was becoming all along.
I want to be more than a shadow of almost.