It will never return
Every single day a wish sets sail
But nothing ever floats back
The constant churn of the tide
Is a clockwork peril
A nomadic timekeeper
Telling us over and over
And over again
The time has come
To look elsewhere

It doesn’t scream.
It whispers
soft as ash
settling
where fire used to be.

It lives
in the pause
before you speak your truth,
in the mirror
you half avoid
each morning.

It wears your voice
in rooms where you shrink,
calls itself “just tired,”
“just busy,”
“just fine.”

It is the bruise
you forget to touch,
the silence
you defend
with a smile too wide.

No blood.
No scar.
Just the slow unraveling
of who you were
before you believed
you were not enough.