the kid watched,
wide-eyed,
no questions, no judgment—
just the kind of curiosity
you only see in something
still whole.

but she broke her,
taught her how to bleed
for forgiveness,
to trade dreams
for punishment
and call it love.

those scars turned her
into something sharp,
a fighter, maybe—
but the fight wasn’t hers.
it was always for scraps
of affection,
a glance,
a *******
"you’re enough."

I woke to find myself
a stranger in my own skin,
the weight of silence pressing deep,
its texture heavy with whispers,
the breath of fears unfurling
like mist over an open field.

They move within me,
specters draped in pale veils,
fingers plucking the taut strings
of every unspoken word,
every wound stitched
with the thread of deceit.

Around me, a forest hums,
its pulse a green ache of longing,
leaves trembling with unspent desire.
I imagine stepping through,
slipping from myself
like bark peeling from an ancient tree.

I want to dissolve,
to be lifted from this shape
and poured into the waiting hands
of something infinite,
to be tasted by the parched lips
of a soul wandering without end.

There is no edge here,
only the slow erosion of what I am,
the merging of silence and breath,
of fear and yearning,
of all I was and all I might become.