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

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

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

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

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

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