Last night,  
in sleep's strange sanctuary,  
I saw you running  
through shadows,  
your silhouette threaded  
with quiet fear
darkness chasing your heels,  
like the hidden truths  
we never spoke aloud.

Instinctively,  
my arms lifted you  
from the tangled paths,  
your breath quick  
against my neck,  
as the world behind us blurred,  
fading softly  
into echoes and mist.

Together, we climbed  
a mountain cloaked  
in velvet night
familiar, yet unknown  
the ascent steep and endless,  
each step carrying  
a silent language  
only our hearts understood.

I felt the gravity  
of every unspoken word,  
the questions hanging  
between us like stars  
in an uncertain sky.  
Yet still, we rose
above the voices,  
above the darkness,  
into quiet air  
that held only  
our shared truth.

When I woke,  
I wondered  
if mountains hold meaning  
beyond dreams
if there's something  
we still climb,  
separately, silently,  
longing to understand  
why our paths  
remain intertwined.

I won’t claim space  
you haven't softly opened,  
but in the gentle breath  
between silence and sound,  
I remain

Not as a shadow lingering  
nor a ghost from yesterday,  
but as someone who always saw you,  
clearly, tenderly,  
even when your heart feared  
what it meant to be truly known.

I know your quiet battles,  
the way you fear losing control,  
how it aches to reveal yourself,  
to step from shadow into light,  
uncertain if anyone could truly hold  
the weight and wonder of your soul.

I've seen you craft careful armor,  
watched you dance on edges of yourself  
longing to be witnessed,  
yet afraid the world  
might look too deeply,  
or not closely enough.

But I saw.

I saw the trembling courage  
behind every hesitant smile,  
the hidden poetry you wrote  
with whispered breaths,  
the strength in softness  
you thought went unnoticed.

I witnessed your silent bravery
the quiet way you loved,  
the gentle way you tried,  
the powerful beauty  
in simply showing up,  
even when you felt unseen.

Sometimes
when the world goes quiet
and I am left alone
with the soft hum inside my skull
I hear them.
Not one voice,
but a thousand.

A symphony of ghosts
wearing my tongue.
Telling me who to be.
What to fear.
What to want.
What to hate in myself.

They sound like me
but they are not me.

They are the weight of every look
I mistook for love.
Every silence
that taught me shame.
Every rule
spoken or implied
engraved in the marrow
before I ever had a choice.

They are the applause I bled for.
The warnings that made me small.
The comforts that came with a cost.

And I wonder
how do you find truth
in a mind you did not build?

What if the self
I’ve been trying to become
was never lost
only buried
beneath decades of conditioning
that spoke kindly
and caged beautifully?

They say to be aware
is to be free
but awareness is a wound.
It opens your eyes
to how little was ever yours.

We are born soft.
Open.
Wild.
And then,
bit by bit,
we are rewritten
in the handwriting of others
until we forget
we ever had a voice of our own.

So what is freedom?
Not escape.
Not rebellion.
It is the quiet revolution
of remembering
your original sound.

The soul’s first whisper
before language.
Before fear.
Before you were made
into someone else’s reflection.

It’s raining again
how familiar,
like a breath I’ve held for years
and forgot how to exhale.

I find myself wishing
the pain would rise
sharpen, sting,
cut deeper than it should.

There’s something honest in the ache,
something warm in the cold.
It hurts,
but it’s the only thing
that still feels true.

There’s a comfort in hurting,
as if the storm understands
what silence never could.
As if the ache knows
what was lost
better than words ever will.

So let it fall.
Let it soak the skin
and whisper old truths.
Because in the end,
it’s not the memory that lingers
it’s the way it still
makes me feel alive.

It feels like cold wind
hitting your face on a rainy day
not enough to hurt,
just enough to make you stop walking.

I miss my friend.
The one I could tell everything to,
the one I wanted to understand
down to the quietest parts of her.

I see something beautiful
a painting, a color,
a moment with no words
and I think, she would’ve loved this.

Sometimes something cool happens,
and I want to tell you right away.
It’s not life-changing—just something
I know you’d smile at,
something you’d make more fun
just by reacting to it.

And then I remember.
I don’t get to hear yours anymore, either.
No little stories,
no funny thoughts in the middle of your day.

I miss that the most
how your stories stayed with me,
long after the day had ended.

Even on the best days,
there’s something missing.

I can laugh.
I can win.
I can build the kind of life
that looks like everything I wanted
but when the day ends
and the noise dies down,
I still feel it.

That hollow echo
where something sacred used to sit.

I don’t say it out loud.
Most people wouldn’t understand
how you can have everything
and still feel like
you lost the only thing that mattered.

It’s not a name.
Not a title.
It’s the quiet certainty
that something real
once lived here.
And nothing since
has fit the same way.

Some mornings,
there’s a dream
warm,
soft-edged,
familiar.
And for a few stolen seconds,
the world makes sense again.
There’s peace.
A laugh I’d trade everything to hear.
A presence that makes the air feel right.

I wake up smiling.

Then I remember.
This is not that world.

And no matter how far I go,
how much I carry,
there’s a room in me
that never closed its door.

Still furnished.
Still lit.
Still waiting
in the quiet.

Because no matter how much joy
the world offers me
it never brings
what I miss most.

I’m sick today.  
Not just in my body
but in the part of me that used to believe  
I’d wake up okay.  

It hurts to move.  
Hurts to breathe.  
Hurts to pretend I’m not tired of fighting  
just to stand.  

And I wish
that I didn’t have to do this  
alone.  

That I didn’t have to wake up  
and remember  
how heavy it is  
to keep existing  
when nothing feels like mine anymore.  

My body is sore.  
But it’s my mind
that keeps collapsing.  
Not loud.  
Not with screams.  
Just in silence
the kind that nobody sees  
because I still smile sometimes.  
Because I still say “I’m fine.”  
Because I don’t want to be a burden.  

I miss the things  
that used to give me meaning.  
The little joys  
that used to carry me  
without asking anything in return.  
Now everything I do  
feels like it costs too much.  
Even breathing.  
Even hoping.