Some days,
it feels like I am outside myself
watching my child-self drown
beneath a skyless surface,
eyes wide, arms reaching,
and I, the adult,
do nothing but stare.

The water is still,
but heavy,
each second dragging me down,
each memory a stone.
My child-self drifts deeper,
hair flowing like seaweed,
a mouth open but silent,
watching the shape of me
blur in the distance.

I see the small hand
reaching upward
not angry,
not afraid,
just desperate
in a quiet, aching way.

And I,
frozen,
feel sorrow crack open
like a fault line,
a grief so old
it forgot how to scream.

I want to dive,
to pull them up,
but my feet won't move.
I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s too late.
Maybe I never learned how.
Maybe I believe I’m the one
who let them fall.

And still,
the hand rises,
the eyes search,
while I remain above,
a ghost
with lungs full of air
and a silence I can’t explain.

I will not lie on my deathbed
haunted by the ghosts
of dreams I left unborn,
of words swallowed
like ash and regret.

The voice in my head
a relentless whisper,
an ember refusing to fade:
Go forward,
Go further,
Or burn alive in the silence.

They call my sky too wide,
my dreams reckless,
as if their fears could cage
my endless horizon.

I burn hot like fire
a fury ignited
by the smallness
of their projections,
the cowardice
of chosen comforts,
a daily surrender
to empty routines.

I rage against shrinking,
against the numbness
of a life untested.
Let them choose ease;
I will chase obsession,
run wild into uncertainty,
and carry my dreams
like flames
into the dark.

I am a prism that only reflects one color at a time.
Obsession my god, my gravity
pulls all else into its orbit.

I’ve seen weeks dissolve like sugar in water,
all for a single pulse of focus,
a voice in my head saying more.

The devil is not separate from me
it is the whisper I cannot unhear,
the flick of a tongue inside my skull,
telling me I am powerful
only when I burn.

As a child, I threw fire just to feel seen.
Chaos raised me, and I mistook
its screaming for music.

Now I chase purpose like a vein
that never opens deep enough.

And when it breaks
when the high exhales
the silence is infinite.

Emptiness like a cathedral
where I kneel before no god,
just my own echo.

I am trying to be the angel on my own shoulder,
but the war never stops.

I need not one flame,
but many small fires.
Let balance be a kind of heat,
enough to keep me warm
without devouring the room.

It was a gray winter day
sky low like it wanted to crush me,
the trees stiff and bloodless.
I was walking with my friend,
boots crunching dead leaves,
when the bullet cracked the silence.

It screamed past my ear,
a wasp of metal and ******.
I didn’t see the gun,
just felt the world split
air sliced like skin,
reality flayed open.

The shot missed.
But it hit something inside me
struck the boy who thought the world was safe,
buried itself where no one could pull it out.

I woke before the sun
not because I had to
because I wanted to.
Tied my shoes like it mattered.
Because it did.

Eight hours in the gym,
Every shot had rhythm,
every move, precision.
I wasn’t just good.
I was gifted.
I knew it.

No one saw me fold into crossovers
like breath folding into wind.
No one saw the nets whisper
my name back to me after each swish.
No one said keep going.
No one said I believe in you.
So I stopped.
At thirteen, maybe fourteen,
I unlaced the dream.

Not because I lacked fire
but because I got tired
of carrying it alone.

I think of that boy now
not the one who quit,
but the one who could’ve gone all the way
and it stings.

Because greatness
isn’t always lost in defeat.
Sometimes, it’s buried
under silence.

Some nights I am not running
I am still.
Not happy, not sad,
just not hungry for more
because for a moment
I forget what I don’t have.

I make a home out of this silence,
lay down my fears like coats
on the cold floor of my heart,
and sit.

But then comes the boy.

The one with dust in his lungs
from screaming into pillows,
with hands too small to hold
the reasons no one stayed.

Even when I dress him
in the things I’ve earned
he still stares at me
with those ******* eyes,
asking why it still hurts
to be.

He doesn’t care
that I built something from fire.
He only asks
why the fire’s still inside me.

And some nights
I want to take a blade of thought
and cut that voice out,
carve away the part of me
that says I’ll never be whole,
never be worth the air I breathe.

But I get up.

I build again.
I shake hands, send emails, lift weights,
try to sculpt a man
from the ache of not being valued.

Every win is a window
I climb through
just to see if he’s still there.
And he always is
barefoot, bleeding
on the glass I left behind.

What no one tells you
about childhood trauma
is that it isn’t a story
you grow out of
it’s a script your bones memorize,
reciting it silently
even as you sing of peace.

Even with everything,
the boy survives.
And maybe just maybe
he’s waiting not to be fixed,
but to be heard.

On golden shores I dream of building,
a home where sunlight softly spills,
where lavender skies kiss turquoise waters,
and whispers dance on windowsills.

In southern France, where oceans breathe,
my house will rise from sand and sea,
yet its heart won’t beat in timber beams,
but in quiet peace, inside of me.

This home, no fortress carved from stone,
but woven from serenity’s thread
no voices raised, no stormy echoes,
only harmony gently spread.

For I've known walls that trapped my shadows,
corridors haunted by younger pains;
rooms where childhood's wounded whispers
painted darkness in cold refrains.

My lowest self still walks those hallways,
a ghost imprisoned in yesterday’s gloom.
But now I dream of doors wide open,
air scented softly by jasmine bloom.

In rooms adorned by tranquil silence,
curtains stirred by a tender breeze,
every space is filled with kindness,
each breath a note of calm release.

I’ll stand, in highest being,
bathed in sunrise, pure and clear
my spirit dancing, unafraid,
safe and whole, untouched by fear.

For homes aren't merely walls and rafters,
nor roofs to shelter from the rain;
they are sanctuaries we carry inward,
hearts where peace can bloom again.

So by the sea, I'll lay foundations,
a sanctuary true and free,
where my highest self awakens,
finding home at last in me.