Born and raised with smiles,
but the sky was always cracked.
Pills shatter in my hand—
fragile ghosts of sleep.
Unreliable… like time slipping sideways.

Scars rise in dreams,
whispering their secrets to the dark.
I’ve got you now—
you, the shadow, the mirror,
stroking my nerves to rest,
to quiet the beast inside.

I remember you as a crush,
when the sun burned softer,
when the roads seemed endless.
Now I hold you,
a treasure,
a puzzle.

Piece by piece, I feel you—
bursting with words,
breaking the silence,
rewriting the dream.

I found a photo today—
its edges frayed,
its silence speaking louder than memory.
The ghost of her,
born of pain but draped in a soft, unknowing light.
How could she not see?
The naïve tilt of her mouth,
the unarmored gaze of someone
who believed in futures made of love.

I would step into that stillness if I could,
shake her shoulders,
tell her to run before the lies
knotted themselves around her ribs,
before his dagger—
not sharp, but slow,
pierced the center of her trust.

I would tell her to proclaim love
where it mattered,
to her daughter watching silently,
to the family she left in the shadows
for a man who swallowed the light.
Every day, her daughter saw it—
the slow dying,
a death stretched across years,
not swift but unrelenting,
like a clock with no hands to stop it.

Run, I’d say,
before the hollow gestures,
before the waiting
for a love that never belonged to you.
See through him,
his promises fragile as dried leaves,
his truths curving away like smoke.

But now I hold the photo,
and she is already gone,
a ghost I can only argue with
in the quiet of my mind,
a ghost who will never hear me.