(Verse)
I spit out shards of last night's dream,
chasing threads and fractured schemes.
I wear my bruises like hand-stitched lace,
daring the dawn to match my pace.

Two summers dissolved, one in the wings,
winter-break and blooming, all gray, tangled strings.
I'm stranded between lost-cause and unfound,
with roots in the sky and feet on the ground.

(Pre-Chorus)
And isn't it tragic, the way ghosts take form?
You're a pattern, a habit, a half-hearted storm.
If you looked at me once like you meant to stay,
would it settle the dust or just ******* away?

(Chorus)
It's almost poetic, the way I play my part—
one foot in daylight, the other in the dark.
Fighting-fit and fighting-mad, memories that churn,
clinging to the sighing bridge I watched you cross then burn.

And if I said I could love you, would it land?
Or hang in the air, a threat, all hollow and ******?
And if I said I love you, would it even land?

(Verse)
Said you resented how I used you to ache,
like I cast you as fire while I burned at the stake.
Said I wore my wounds like jewels dripping down
a cocotte smile, a  martyr's crown.

Called me blameless, a darling saint,
a canonized victim in delicate paint.
But I've learned to love the heft of scars,
wearing ashes you left like fallen stars.

(Pre-Chorus)
And isn't it just twisted, the way you choose to haunt?
A vivid grace, a clever chase, a truth you did not want.
You planted roots in a garden you'd leave,
an empty grave I still water and grieve.

(Chorus)
It's almost poetic, the way I play my part—
one foot in daylight, the other in the dark.
Fighting-fit and fighting-mad, memories that churn,
clinging to the sighing bridge I watched you cross then burn.

And if I said I could love you, would it land?
Or hang in the air, a threat, all hollow and ******?
And if I said I love you, would it even land?

(never-ending Bridge)
When we talked about kids, with laughter on lips,
madness like heirlooms, sweet apocalypse.
“It’s not right to ******* around,”
you dropped your bombs as I star-gazed from the ground.

You loved me in riddles, in half-truths and smoke,
left me craving the punchlines to every cruel joke.
Appointed me Queen of an empire gone
a plot-line twisted, a catastrophic denouement.

Asked you to visit, heart laid bare,
big house, empty rooms, “Come, love me there.”
What do you think of when your hands get bored?
Do they crave the inches you never explored?

Kissed me in theory, ****** me in words,
left me aching in metaphors, splintered in thirds.
Does my short-skirt-restless stir you, ten years gone by?
Do you see I’m getting cuter? A five-foot fine-wine.

Think of me late, when you can't get clean,
when desire drips slow, my name gasoline.
I dream of you younger, long hair, frayed seams,
like a well-timed kiss could rewrite dropped lines, silent screams.

Now I wonder where you are, in what state, what bed,
if you ever read my poems or regret what you said?
Maybe you think of me, brilliant, unbridled-
or maybe I'm nothing—worthless, exiled.

(Chorus)
It's almost poetic, the way I play my part—
one foot in daylight, the other in the dark.
Fighting-fit and fighting-mad,
on my knees but singing
verses from scars still stinging.

And if I said I could love you, would it land?
Or hang like a ghost, hollow and ******?
And if I said I love you, would it even land?

(Outro)
It's been a long time coming, this curse, this lust,
I've woven us into poems, stitched from rust.
If I said I loved you, could you let it stand,
without closing your fist around my trembling hand?

Think of me fondly, then punch out a wall—
echoes from bridges you’re compelled to let fall.
I don't think it'd land.
I know it wouldn't land.
wouldn’t land.

You said, “If I loved you, I’d make you my wife,”
I smiled with my eyes while that cut like a knife.
I shrugged, “Playing house in the forest just isn’t my thing,”
You grinned, “I know, but someday you’ll look good in my ring.”

Then, “We’d make beautiful kids, no doubt,”
Pan to me spinning out—
the ****’s that about?
You cast palmy lines out in lakes of blue,
Reel them back just to watch me bruise.

Every glance is a bait, every word a disguise,
Painting me futures with half-open eyes.
You string me along with a touch and a tease,
Like these promises don’t steal my breath and my sleep.

You talk in circles, keep me halfway there,
Trap me in snares, gasping for air.
I’m the half-written story you stash on a shelf,
The pretty idea you save for yourself.

But I’m done waiting for a life you won’t start,
Done being a muse in your second-rate art.

Hypotheticals shuffled in black and red,
A game where I’m playing, but I’m underfed.
You bluff with a tell that’s more tale than truth,
A plot spun from lips that lie more than soothe.

You tuck the truth into creased, hidden folds,
Like secrets are currency you get to withhold.
Bits of confession slip through your jest,
Building a house of cards in my chest.

I’m done with your “someday” that drips with delay,
You paint futures in grayscale but I’m done with the gray.
I won’t be the punchline in your past-tense tense,
No longer the girl caught up on the fence.

I won’t be the footnote you write in small print,
Or the flash in your memory that’s starting to tint.
I won’t be the whisper you keep on the side,
Or the “could’ve been” girl that haunts your pride.

I write in fragments, splinters of bone and honey,
syllables cracked open, spilling
the sweet rot of almosts, an ache left raw.

Each word wears two faces—shadow and shimmer,
tiptoeing like smoke across split lips,
dressed in disquiet, cloaked and crooked,
and, and, and—

each line drips slow, a fever-burn with sharp teeth.
Commas scrape their knees, a bleeding scab
I can’t help but pick clean.

I leave bruises on pages, backwards and barefoot—
not wounds, not quite, but something
that lingers like woodsmoke in the morning.

My lines stumble like drunk apologies,
guttural and gripping.
You don’t read my work;
you trespass, you crawl.

What I say and what I don’t—
they hold hands in the spaces between,
like shadows slipping past each other.

Sentences flex limp and knotted,
stones in my throat waiting to choke.

This isn’t a poem—it’s a map of missed exits,
each word an ache left half-sewn,
stitched by hands too tired to be careful,
fingers too numb to be precise.

I write in whispers and warnings,
half-lives and half-lies, spurting soft and sideways,
graffiti on walls in rooms no one stays in.

This is language as ruin,
syntax frayed, stretched to ache
till it tears, a glimmer of tendon beneath.
Not a story, not even a sentence—
just pieces scattered like dry leaves,

prose unmade, too jagged to hold,
but clinging like sap,
sweet and hard to forget,

leaving you haunted,
a little lost, a little found,
with edges sharp enough to cut.

There's a subtle violence to the way we interact
your eyes linger, half a dare, half a dismissal—
waiting for me to say something that will make it easier,
like my mouth will invite you to betray me before you even start.

You say my name like it's a sigh you can't quite swallow,
and I answer with a laugh that tastes like a talking doll,
plastic and metallic, sticking to the back of my throat.
We sit in the silence that pulses between us,
thick as the secrets we keep beneath our tongues.

A smarter girl would have seen the strings,
a dumber girl would have played along,
a bolder girl would have set fire to the toy shop,
and a braver girl would have never
let herself be a toy in the first place.

There's a subtle violence to the way we pretend;
clinging to skin with fingers made of willow and ash,
clinging to diving boards with the same desperate grip.
I wonder if this is love or just inertia—
a habit that clings like the scent of smoke,
***** and aching, lingering long after the flame is gone.

But you hold me at arm's length,
just vague enough to haunt,
just close enough to hurt,
and I know better
but I still reach, I still grasp—

I still fall like a dream dissolving at dawn,
a fall that feels like freedom,
weightless for a fleeting second:
no strings, no metal, no violent subtleties, no smoke at all.

And when the ground rises up to greet me,
a cruel embrace that whispers
what's been in my mouth all along,
what the doll tried to say before she burned:

that letting go is never the hardest part,
it's surviving the landing that shatters you,
and knowing you were the one that jumped.

Why do the stars seem brighter when you’re far from home?
How is it possible to feel so much and still be empty?
Was my love too heavy, or were you just afraid?
What if I’m always too much and never enough, like the way the sky bleeds at sunset?
Do you picture my tears like confetti?
Were the vibes sublime?

Why does the thought of you getting engaged on Facebook
make me want to throw up pretty bushes?
Why did I feel I was asking too much, when all I ever
wanted was for you to mean what you said?
Is longing always this loud, or am I the only one screaming?

How do we keep going when hope is just a rumor we tell ourselves at 3 a.m.?
When did we decide that falling apart had to be done quietly?
What if love is less like falling and more like standing
outside a door I’m too afraid to open?

What does your therapist think about me?
How long have you been saying my name in that room,
throwing it against the walls like something you can’t figure out?
Did you lie to me, or was it yourself you couldn’t face?
What if the map we’ve been following was drawn by hands that never touched?
What if we never touch?

Remember ten years ago, before this got so knotted,
we were learning lines in basements and smoking cloves behind the theater?
Did you think you’d be the one I shatter for?
Why does happiness feel like something I’m never allowed to keep?
What if time doesn’t soften the edges but teaches us how to carry the sharpness?

Why do the faces in old photographs seem to know something we don’t?
Is there a difference between being brave and being reckless,
or does it all depend on how the story ends?
What was the tipping point, the moment you shut down the parade?
What was the endgame? Why was it a game at all?
How many times have you pressed your ear to the silence,
hoping it might tell you something new?

Why does the idea of forever sound like both a promise and a threat?
How do I stop feeling like you’re the only poem I write?
Have you read the poems about you?
Are they easy to decode? Are they eating you alive?
Do you want to be eaten?

Do you ever wonder if the fire was always just fire?
What if the love I gave wasn’t meant for you,
but for the version of me that needed something to believe in?
Was I crossing a line, or was I drawing one?
What if I never stop mourning something I made up?

How do you carry an atlas under your tongue?
Does my voice still sound like a howl? Does it pierce your night?
Did you really have to detonate us two weeks before the release of The Tortured Poets Department?
Will the story of us linger like smoke in those songs forever?
What do you think about when you think of me—my voice echoing off the walls,
my *** in leggings, or my ceaseless need to be seen?
Will I ever stop dreaming about you?
Why do I know it’s been exactly 200 days since it happened?
Who’s counting?

How do we reconcile the person we thought we’d be with the one we see in the mirror at 3 a.m., wide-eyed and wondering?
What did you get out of keeping me in your orbit, spinning in circles while you stood still?
Why does your name still taste like blood when I say it out loud?
Will I ever stop wondering why I wasn’t enough?
What if the real betrayal was how easily you let me believe it was my fault?

Pretend it’s just another party—
an apartment filled with ghosts in rented shoes,
the air so balmy-slick and regret-thick
you chew it between clenched teeth and canapés.

Laughter echoes like it's hollow—
like it's searching for a way out.
Smile anyway, teeth shining shields,
polished by all the swill you've swallowed.

Conversations carry and carry on,
half-truths wrapped in nicer clothes, familiar faces
wrapped with softer shadows, words slurring to silk, then blurring to tilt.
Wave at someone you used to know;
pretend like you have any say in how you’re remembered.

Pretend the warm hands on your shoulders aren’t anchors
dragging you back to conversations you’ve outgrown,
then pretend your feelings were never knives
dressed as whispers,
and strangers in your skin.
Pretend you've never been the best thing at the party.
Pretend you've never been the worst.

The ghosts taught you some tricks;
pour drinks and flatter, don’t spill souls and blather—
the art of being just enough, but never too much,
your heart near the door, the gravity of leaving,
a muscle that’s learned to scheme and stay still
in ways your body can't, your mind never will.

Pretend just another party—
just another night to swallow or score.
You’re so much younger than you ever were, and braver;
one eye on the exit and one foot out the door.

Exits beckon another entrance:
but that wouldn't be pretending,
would it?

The best thing at this party
only pretends to leave-
the worst thing at this party
is smiling anyway.

We learn to smile with our lips peeled back,
half-feral, half-forgotten,
daughters of flesh and teeth,
tasting the world as it tears through us—

The earth calls us by name,
whispering whorls and wants like lullabies,
beckoning hearts that never knew mercy,
braiding hair with thorns and boughs.

We answer in hunger,
all iron and salt, thirst and thistle,
skin pulling tight over gnarled roots and longing,
nerves quivering like a candle burning at both ends.

We sharpen ourselves on what remains—
cracked knuckles, raw knees,
holding the ache like a birthright,
swallowing each bruise,
never begging, only bleeding.