I’m deleting you in fragments
Digits before pictures
Like pulling teeth in the wrong order
The apps still think we’re married
Offering me sales on rings
A carousel of anniversaries I don’t want tickets for
Every playlist is wired with shrapnel
A hook catches my ribs
The bridge splits open under me
Even silence feels like background music I forgot to turn off
Your name surfaces in autofill
A half-built ghost the keyboard won’t let rot
Loss written out for me before I even breathe it
I clear the cache
But the body has no settings menu
Skin remembers fingerprints
Shoulders still flinch at phantom weight
The servers keep everything
So do I
Unopened folders
Permissions denied
A hard drive buzzing at night
With what it refuses to erase

I memorised this house’s percussion
Before I learned to speak
Survival dictated it
My bedroom door doesn’t lock
None of them do
A house of false privacy
Where boundaries exist only in theory
So I learned to barricade myself with silence instead
To make myself so quiet that they forget I’m here
To breathe so softly that the air around me remains undisturbed
I became a ghost in my own home long before I learned to detach
The walls are thin enough that voices carry
But thick enough that words get muffled
Just the tone remains
Sharp
Accusatory
Defensive
Pleading
A symphony of dysfunction in four-part disharmony
I press my ear against the cool plaster sometimes
To feel the vibrations
Anger has a particular frequency
It rattles your molars if you press your jaw to the wall just right
A house full of translators for people standing three feet apart

The sky drips ink
It stains my hands
A silent clock
No time to stand
I drink the tar
It pulls me down
Thick and black
It spins me round
I’m drowning
Drowning inside out
Smoke in my lungs
No way to shout
Echoes
They call
They pull
They bite
I’m lost
I’m lost
In endless night
A mirror cracks
But shows no face
A hollow laugh
It haunts this place
I’m breathing shadows
Thick and slow
A nightmare river where I flow
The stars are wounds
They bleed the dark
A frozen scream
A burning spark
I hold my breath
The silence roars
A thousand whispers
Behind locked doors
My fingers grasp
But touch no skin
A fading world
I’m trapped within

I turned into an alley that had
No right to exist
The walls stretched at impossible
Angles while the graffiti
Writhed like snakes
Letters curling as they worked to Unspell themselves before
Reforming into shapes
That I couldn’t comprehend
Spray-painted faces snarled
Whispered
Laughed
Every corner I passed
Seemed to fold inward
Narrowing
Bending
Guiding me deeper into a labyrinth
That was neither city nor dream
Smoke from a joint
Or maybe the air itself
Curled around me
Forming letters
Warnings I could almost read
Shapes hovered like
Half-formed geometry
The theremin-like wail
From the previous night returned
Sharper
Higher
Twisted into an accusation that
I could feel behind my ribs

I have pasta trauma
That’s the joke I tell
But it isn’t funny
It’s shorthand for the sickness
That never leaves
It’s why hunger feels safer than indulgence
Why I can starve myself with ease
But stumble over a plate of something rich
I am fluent in the language of deprivation
Fullness has always felt like arrogance
Nobody talks about the way shame
Ferments in the stomach
How it sits heavier than food ever could
Shame teaches you to apologize for existing
Before you even open your mouth
Shame teaches you to rehearse obedience
Until it becomes instinct
Hunger became my first addiction
The only sensation I could control
I didn’t know then that choosing not to eat
Was the closest thing to rebellion I had

Bone resembles glass in my chest
Remembering your weight
I folded the light inside my ribs
Until it snapped into a cage
The air is a mirror
And you are not reflected in it
Every corridor I walk hums
With the absence you carved
Trust rotted
Left fingerprints in my veins
I traced them with ice
Fingers frozen into claws
That caught nothing
The soft part of me
Was a city you razed
Now the rubble has its own pulse
And it beats without a sound
I wear the memory of you
Like a shard pressed into skin
And it hurts so precisely
That the wound is elegance
Nothing passes through
Nothing touches
Nothing bends
Even grief is a machine I dismantled
And stacked into neat towers
Inside the hollow of my throat
I do not bleed
I do not wait
I do not hope
Even fear folds into itself
Before it reaches me
Every echo of your voice
Is a fossil
Every warmth you left
Is a blueprint for winter
The world moves around me
And I am a cage that nobody owns
The frost in my lungs
Has learned its own gravity
You left nothing
I built everything from the absence
Ash is stronger than flesh
Silence sharper than a knife
And I will carry it all
Without ever opening the door Again

You were my skin
My bones
My voice
Every crooked part I let you hold
"I'm gone"
Two words
A knife right through
With practiced precision
Do you know how heavy betrayal is
When it smells like trust?
I'm twisted around our memories
A coil of hands and voices
You left dangling midair
I can't breathe
I can't think
You're everywhere
Inside my chest
In my throat
Gnawing
Twisting
I wanted you to stay
I wanted the safe place
I built inside you to be real
I wanted you
I wanted you
I wanted you
I don't want another beginning
I don't want to fold myself
Into someone else's hands
Just to get shredded again
I wanted everything
And it broke me anyway
I hate it
The way I love you
The way I can’t erase you
The way it cost my sanity
While you carry nothing
I don’t want anyone else
I can’t
I won’t
I can’t go through this again
I won’t survive it
You’re gone

What are we now?
A half-buried sentence
A message delivered to
The wrong address
I reach for you and touch nothing
I hate the squatter in my skull
Your voice pacing my corridors
Your face nailed to the
Backs of my eyelids
You’re gone
But I still wear your fingerprints
Like burns
The safest place I ever knew
Has collapsed
The walls I leaned against
Are rubble in my throat
I gag on dust
I choke on your ghost
Everyone tells me to “move on,”
Like it’s just a switch I forgot to flick
But your absence is marrow-deep
It hums through bone
A phantom limb jerking at nothing
I want to amputate the thought of you
But the blade keeps turning back
Into my own skin
You are everything
And nothing
And I am stuck in the wreckage
Beating my fists against a locked door
Leading to nowhere

I am not the girl I once was
She rotted in my ribcage before I even Knew how to grieve her
What remains is a howl that
Outlived its throat
I drag her like a corpse
Tied to my ankle
Praying she’ll twitch
Praying she’ll open her eyes and Forgive me for surviving wrong
I liked her better
She was honey before the swarm
She was soft
Unscarred
Still stupid enough to
Believe in forever
Now she’s bones in a closet
I keep polishing
Hoping to see her smile
In the reflection
But she never stood a chance
And neither did I

You learned how to starve me
Without letting me leave the table
You trained me to mistake
Famine for devotion
And still
I kept swallowing the scraps
You don't understand
What it means to hold a body that
Beats itself ****** trying to
Keep you alive inside of it
Stress turns muscle into glass
That can only be shattered
And I've been shattering
Everyday you've said "I don't know"
Do you know what it feels like
To drown upright in a room while
The person you love forgets you
Exist?
You talk about car oil
About money
About Ireland
Anything to avoid acknowledging
The countdown to my own collapse

The mushrooms in the forest
Know more about survival than me
They bloom in death
And wear it like velvet
I tried burying fear in the compost bin
It came back fragrant
Humming songs I hadn't written yet
There's glory in the stink of it
Mould carving frescoes in
Forgotten bread
Worms in the pit of the peach saying
"We were here first"
I think I love things more
Once they start falling apart
Makes them honest

My head says
"Leave before the floor disappears
Before you wake up
With nothing but splinters
And a mouth full of questions
You already know the answer to"
My heart says
"Wait
He’s just tired
He’s just busy
He’s just trying to find the words"
Hasn’t he had enough time?
“I don’t know”
It’s a language you’ve
Decided to live in
While I’m translating
Myself into nothing
My spine folds in
My ribs start counting the days
Without you in them
I try to remember your voice
Without the hesitation
But all I hear is the pause before
“I don’t know”
I’m holding the door open for
Someone who can’t even
Look at the room
I’m swallowing glass
Calling it patience
And every piece cuts deeper
When I tell myself you’re worth it
My head says
"This isn’t love anymore
This is erosion
This is weathering yourself down
To fit a space that’s already empty"
My heart says
"No
Remember his hands
Remember the way he made the world Small enough to hold
Remember how you’d do it all again"
I think about next week
The way you’ll look at me
And say it again
And my chest will cave
And my eyes will sting
And maybe that’s the last time
Or maybe I’ll let it be another

"I don’t know"

"I don’t know"

"I don’t know"

And it’s killing me that
Neither do you

The air is too close
Thick
Wet
Pressing against my teeth
I jump

Once

Twice

Again

Harder

Harder

My knees crack
My spine bites itself
The world doesn’t move
Mud on my skin
Mud in my skin
Pulling me down
Pulling me in
Shadows lean forward
Like they know
Like they’ve been waiting
My breath isn't breath anymore
It's claws
Fists
Fire in a glass jar
And I’m breaking inside it
I jump

Again

Again

Again

One more jump
One more chance
The air thickens
My chest is glass due to shatter
And it hits me

I am not moving
I have never moved
I will never move

I drink the night in drops so black
Tar drips down my splintered cracks
Lips that beg but never bite
For mercy’s hand
For one clean night
It settles in
Digs its claws
Whispers rot where voices pause
Drowning quiet in heavy dusk
It fills my marrow
Turns to rust
Solid shadows
Splintered bone
I’m breathing still
But not my own
Smoke curls sharp like serpent’s teeth
Echoes writhe beneath my grief
The air collapses
The pulse caves in
My lungs become a coffin's skin
It hardens deep
Nails me shut
No door to break
No light to cut
Only night
Only stone
Only death while I live alone

I fold my edges sharp and clean
A paper crane you’ve never seen
I glide through rooms
I speak in tune
I shine
I gleam
Your perfect moon
But the mirror cracks when I exhale
A breath too real
A breath too frail
Smoke and mirrors
That’s my skin
Love me untill I let you in
Then I’m the shadow
The ghost
The sin
Fractured skin
I can't win
I laugh in keys you’ll understand
I shape my world with careful hands
A chiseled smile
A painted hue
The me you love is never true
The paint peels back
It stains my nails
You see the colours that I kept veiled

I built you a bridge
With my bare hands
you torched it to ashes
Just to watch it stand
I gave you a map
You tossed it away
You cry for the road
But won’t walk today
I’ve seen this scene
I know the score
The same excuses
Scattered on the floor
Your story spins
A revolving door
You won’t pull through
So why should I do
what you refuse to?
Keep your hollow yells
And problems stacked like
Dominos that never fell
You beg for a lifeline
While you sink
I reach out my hand
You let it slip
I’m not your saviour
Nor your saint
I can’t carry all your weight
You’re the villain in your tale
And I won’t fix what you derail

I found a staircase carved into thunder
Each step a tooth pulled from sleeping beasts
The air tasted of copper
And half-remembered hymns
I climbed until my name fell off my shoulders
And rolled back into the darkness like a coin
Mirrors waited
Cracked and sighing with old weather
And when I reached for one
It bit my hand
A lantern swung from the jawbone of a tree
Older than remorse
Moths gathered like ash in my mouth
And taught me to speak
In vanished dialects
Even the silence had a pulse
I tried to pray once
But the sky folded its arms
Every word transformed into wolves
Who wouldn't approach me
The horizon was a wound stitched with lightning
Far below
Cities slept in the stomachs of drowned bells
Their windows flickering with dreams left unclaimed
I wanted to wake them
But my hands resembled rivers
And everything I touched forgot its shape
By dawn
I had grown antlers made of frost
And a mouth full of rain
The staircase ended in nothing
Except the sound of wings
Turning to glass

The oracles don't whisper to the living
They chant in vapour
In marrow
In echoes only heard when the self has softened
You must forget your shape
To bear their song
And become smoke to listen
I walked barefoot on salted glass
Between two moons, arguing softly
A crow watched me with seven eyes
And every blink re-wrote my spine
I asked for peace
It offered vision
I asked for answers
It offered mirrors too honest to survive
The oracles don't whisper to the living
They speak in rust
In moth wings
In teeth lost to grief
Their tongues run rivers underground
And you will drown before you understand
I saw a god blink once
And galaxies collapsed inward
Distracted, not cruel
The veil is not a curtain
But a membrane of remembering
I pressed my face through it
And came back less human
More true
The oracles wove their riddles
In the seams of my ribs
Now I hum when it rains
And dream in reverse
The oracles don't whisper to the living
They wait
And when your voice becomes dust
They will answer in wind and meaning
Not words or mercy
If you hear them
You are no longer asking
You are becoming what you once feared to know

I built a home in your silence
Hung hope like art in the dark
You watched me drown in your absence
Called it growth while you tore me apart
I begged with hands that bled for you
But you pulled away like I stained your skin
No love left to give
No breath to steal
You left me lit
Watched me peel
Made a ghost and blamed the flame
Now say my name as you feel shame
You carved me
Hollow
Wide
Deep
Then turned your back like pain comes cheap
You call that space?
I call it spit
Fed me fire I won't forget
No love left to give
No skin to save
You left me lit in your quiet grave
Made the mess and left me raw
I'm the scar you can't outdraw
Never flinched while I collapsed
Not a word as my hands unclasped
You left the match and watched me burn
Don't you dare pretend you hurt
No love left to fake
No grace to give
You left me lit
I learned to live
Not for you
Not for them
For the silence you condemned

I stand there waiting
Reheating the same thing I made yesterday
Cold center
Burnt edge
The world peels in soft strips
Same siren
Same neighbor arguing with the wind
Same breath caught in my teeth
This is what survival looks like
When it isn’t brave
Persistent
No fire
No grand unraveling
Just a flickering light I still haven’t replaced
And the knowledge that it will never be
The right time to change the bulb

Shallow end of a pond
Spinning slowly
Another body and I'm sorry
It's the most gut-wrenching
Sad
Raw
Depressing
Cliché
Cliché
Cliché
It's the most gut-wrenching time
Of the year
It's the blood in the air
Getting colder
And I've fallen
And I'm calling
It's the most gut-wrenching
Sad
Raw
Depressing
Cliché
Cliché
Cliché
It's the most gut-wrenching time
Of the year

Ticking clocks paint the air with time
Zippers drag slow with a mellow chime
Graffiti walls whisper in neon hues
Skateboards cruise under psychedelic blues
Theremin cries like a ghost in the night
Squeaky floors sing in a flickering light
Dulcimers hum a kaleidoscopic trance
City bones shake with its cosmic dance
Dreams drip down in tie-dye streams
Stardust heavy like shattered beams
Baby scratches echo
The bass unfolds
The universe spins in colours untold
Moon winks as the streets come alive
Vibrations hum through technicoloured eyes
Broken tiles sing beneath our feet
Melodies thrive where chaos meets
Time slows down in this painted maze
Eyes wide open in a lucid haze
Clock hands melt feral and free
A symphony born in graffiti debris

I keep the flood in a teaspoon
Stir slow
Don’t spill
My throat learned how to
Knot itself into napkins
Folded
Unused
Beautiful
You blinked and the room dimmed
Just enough for me to
Pack the sun away
I speak in mist
Maybe
Never rain
Your name still fits
But only on the inside of my wrist
Where nobody looks
I walk lighter now
No grace
Just
Less of me left to carry
If I’m quiet enough you might
Stay
So I practice being nothing
Loudly

I bit the sun
And it tasted like tinfoil
Every shadow has eyes now
And they all blink out of sync
My name doesn’t fit right in my mouth
It writhes
Too many teeth
I watch the wallpaper breathe
And pretend it isn’t speaking
But it is
It always is
You said “calm down”
Like I wasn’t already holding the ceiling in place
With a splintered jaw and
A scream I forgot how to aim
I pour milk over static
Call it breakfast
Swallow whole days
The clocks tick sideways
The floor sighs
Everything feels staged
But no one gave me lines
I clap when the lights flicker
Just in case it’s the end
Or the beginning
Hard to tell
My hands aren’t mine anymore
They just follow the hum

My past is a landfill with a halo on top
Saints made of bad decisions
Versions of me who didn't know better
But still swung first
I burned the blueprint
Then cried when the roof caved in
Everything is covered in soot
Yet I keep calling it a fresh start
Have you ever dressed a wound in glitter?
It doesn't work
But it photographs well

The floor gave out
But I didn’t
I stood there with a mouthful of dust
Like it was air
Okay to choke
The walls peeled off their faces
Showing nothing but cracked bone
And hollowed out promises
I touched the silence
It burned like rust on open skin
No crash
No bang
Just the slow grind of everything
Falling apart quietly
Until even the debris forgets
It existed
I stayed to watch the mildew
Become a new kind of home

We dress the wreckage
Hang fairy lights in the ruins
And call it ambiance
Throw words like 'Resilience' at bleeding walls
To feel like we survived on purpose
We stitch apologies on shirts we outgrew
Paint over scorch marks
With pastel hope
And act surprised when the fire
Still smells like us
We prop the broken door open
With books about healing and call it art
A metaphor
Anything but what it is
Grief in a new dress
Still dragging the same bones

This body is a rental with claw marks
I've worn it as a costume
A form of armour
A question I'm too tired to answer
They keep handing me mirrors
Like I'm supposed to say 'thank you'
But I know what lives beneath my ribs
A storm
A voice that never learned quiet
Some days
I move like this second hand skin
Wasn't stitched from other people's expectations
Other days
I send out smoke signals
From a war I didn't start
Still
I show up
Bruised
Blistered

Confessions never seem to come
They hover bluntly in the throat
I think they're afraid
Of the rot
That grows in words unspoken
A quiet mold
Blooming behind the teeth
Between the maybe
And the nevermind

You think silence is mercy
But it has claws
And they dig in when the lights go out
I've waited for softness
That doesn't arrive
For a sentence with a full stop
Not just breathless withdrawal

The resentment simmers and curdles
Every memory turns to vinegar
In the gut
The sharpness turns inward
Every word a shiv I swallow
Like a storm in the mouth
Lethal even without the screaming
My pain delivered in whispers
Through a voice trained to stay quiet Until it splinters

And when it finally breaks
It won't sound like rage
It will sound like a crack in the drywall
Like something old slowly giving way
Obedience trained to carry grief
It seeps into the environment
Taught to flinch
To fold
To stay

What did it cost you
To feel nothing while I choked on
Everything you wouldn't say?
If pain was currency
I could buy you back in full
Hell,
I could buy a better ending
Where you don't just stand there
Like a bystander
To our wreckage