Burning nightlights,
shining galaxies away.
A secondhand
is still.
The ticking of a beating heart—
softened now.

The universe
drops a single tear.
A mother’s hand
against her womb.
Butterflies sink
into cotton sheets.
Poetic words
transcend in rhythm.

He’ll know
the moon.

Darkness surrounds.
A candle flickers
in the mirror’s reflection—

A glimpse of your eyes,
no more than twelve,
nose to nose
with your own shadow.

Say the name.
The legend says
the demon will appear.

One time.
Two times.
Three times… more.

Until your future self
stares back at you.

I am angry.
I am angry that my body fought to fill my flesh, to be enough for you.
My heart - it knew.
It knew in the way it sank, heavy in my stomach,
Weighted by every critical word.
And when I told you, stop, please stop, it hurts,
You mocked me. You made me the victim.
Told me I wasn’t strong enough,
That your words were not sticks and stones,
That they could not break my bones.
But they broke.

I look back at every time I begged -
Please, just see me.
Don’t find pleasure belittling me.
Don’t make yourself big by making me small.
Don’t use words you wouldn’t say to a friend.
Don’t scream in rage those cruel names .
But they spilled like chemicals,
and they burned.
I pleaded - Please stop, it hurts,
and you refused.
Even as I whispered I’m sorry when I wasn’t wrong and you weren’t right,
Even when my feelings were real,
You twisted my words until I doubted what I knew.

Now, I lay in bed, restless.
Your voice still lingers, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts.
Why did I have to fight just to be?
Did you ever even love me?

I want to lock my body away, never let a man touch me again.
I fight because I can still feel your hands on my skin.
And when I kissed your lips, I betrayed my own.
Your lips scorned and scolded,
Spat profanities, but I forgave.
I forgave, and I moved with you in love.
I placed my hands in yours,
Caressed your palms,
Shared breaths with breaths,
Rose and fell with you.
And how we rose.
And how we fell.

And I let you come inside.
I let you come inside.

I dusted off my corners,
Showed you my trinkets and knickknacks,
Pieces I saved for special moments -
Like falling in love.

I trusted you.
I pulled the box from beneath my bed,
Let you see the things I kept hid,
The imperfect parts you didn’t want to know.
I showed them to you because I needed you to see me - whole.

I saw more scorn in your eyes,
Transforming into my protected inner child,
The familiar way you looked down on me,
As if I was something rotting, covered in flies.
I had laid myself bare -
All my beauty, all my brokenness -
And you judged.

So I gathered those pieces, swept them away,
Let them fall into the dustpan,
Tossed them out, one by one,
Until there was nothing left to critique.
Until there was nothing left of me.

Except the one I protect inside,
Who felt the trembling as his mother cried.
Who heard your words in screaming rage,
That pierced through like knives.
Who felt your hands that terrified,
That bruised my body you covered with lies.

And I am angry.

Silence—
like plunging my body into freezing waters,
sinking to the ocean floor,
where the dark, murky current swirls around me,
blinding, suffocating.
I scream—scream so loud—
but all you hear is silence.

Silence—
a concrete room with chained steel doors,
hidden in the belly of an abandoned building.
I pound on the walls,
scratch at the floor until my nails bleed,
screaming—begging—
Please, find me. Please, find me.
But there’s no one left to listen,
and all you hear is silence.

Silence—
a grave I dug trying to love you in all the wrong ways.
Buried alive beneath the weight of my own faults,
lungs filling with dirt,
mouth muddied with the taste of regret.
I gasp for breath,
screaming help, screaming I’m sorry—
until there’s nothing left but surrender,
and all you hear is silence.

Silence—
settling into my bones,
seeping into my flesh until it no longer feels my own.
I recognize the walls around me,
but this is not my life, not my home.
This is everything I know, yet do not know.
Every bone aches with a hollow pain—
too fragile to move.
If I do, I break.

Silent tears fall into my sheets,
pooling into the mattress where you never sleep.
What is this darkness in the space you used to hold?
A hollow cave inside my chest that echoes your screaming words—
I hate you. I hate you.
But I can still feel my love.

So I lay here in silence,
under covers that are too thin,
but heavy, weighed down by you.
Paralyzed.
Mute.
Words screaming in my head—silent, unheard—
words you will never hear.

And you will sleep soundly,
while my broken heart shatters deafening my ears,
and all you hear is silence.

You wanted me to speak your name
And so i did
I spoke it soft, i spoke it sweet, i spoke it
In love
But it was never yours to give
Yet, you did
In the fragments you could
Pry away that needed safe keeping
And I cradled them each
Individually like
Infants without mothers
Needing the warmth of flesh upon flesh

I miss you
Before i knew all of your broken parts
Before you took me apart piece by piece
And analyzed my heart

I miss you
Before I lost the kindness in your eyes
Before words that cut through me
Sharp & jagged twisting knives

I miss you

What is a night but a place to get lost? Lost somewhere in the dark. The darkest dark. You know the kind. (You do.) The kind where everything you’ve loved is no more, the last ember has burned out, the final flame is gone—a power surge that knocked an entire city out, the bottom of a well, sitting on a freshly dug grave and screaming until your lungs give out. That kind of dark.

Will they find me? Will he find me? Will he look for me? Has he looked for me? Has he even thought of me? Was he even real? Was he? Was I? Were we?

If he was, he is a ghost now. And he harbors all of the light. He holds it selfishly—a thief—who showed me his face, the one I could trace with my eyes closed. But I dare not touch. I dare not touch. I dare not touch.

We touched. I melted into him like a fallen candle, pieces of me everywhere.

His eyes—green, kind, nervously intense. The way his lips tightly spread across his face, with two exaggerated peaks. The softness of his pale skin. His pretentiously ******* parted hair. The hair he fiddled with, over and over, creating a part he was supposed to not part.

Can I fall asleep now and pretend his hands have interlaced with mine, one last time?

A solace sleep.

Dream sweet, my dear.

Dream sweet.