Tears carve faint rivers on my face,
a map without direction.
Her hands—untouched whispers.
Her voice—swallowed silence.
I wander the plains
she once passed,
leaving only air where footprints should be.

Where was the harbor of her arms?
The rise and fall of her breath,
a tide I’ve never known?
I sift the sands of memory,
but they crumble,
grains slipping through
the hollows of a name
that feels like someone else’s.

Questions scatter like leaves—
fragile, unanswered—
skimming the surface before they sink.
Did she watch my first light bloom?
Did her shadow lean over me,
or was I always a ghost
in her unseeing gaze?

The silence—
heavy as the weight of earth—
presses into my chest.
I bear it still,
a shadowed grief,
a mother’s shape
etched in absence.

Fragments of a dying light,
His words of sorrow crumble in my mouth,
Splinters of a shattered mirror—
Light refracting,
The iron taste lingers, bitter and raw.

The hoary silhouette of bare branches looms,
Their grip frozen, unmoving, still—
A vast, naked nothingness
Dwells within me,
Hollow, cold, and bare.

Identities unknown, faces erased,
Responsibility slips into the void.
Confusion swells, a tide of paranoia,
Scattered dreams of strangers,
Shoals glimmering in ceaseless dance.

Rapid-fire bullets of offence,
A necklace of sins,
Heavy, choking,
My drowning heart clenched tight,
Twenty years of youth bled dry.

Once, I felt brave—
A warrior in the haze,
A needle my sword, ****** my shield.
Layer by layer, I sought salvation,
Grasping, frantic, at false light.

I needed his pity,
His shame,
His love to save me from myself.
But betrayal stained the air—
A wound too deep to heal.

Fishhooks pierce and pull,
Entrapment tears my flesh apart.
Love dies slow,
Its remnants shatter,
Leaving only the wreckage of me.