this feels brighter
as if the light
has remembered
how to touch skin

the colors of our childhood have come back
crayon blue skies
the chirping
the colors of the flowers
and the smell
oh the smell

not exactly as they were
everything feels like return
but not quite return

and still, underneath it all
a strange quiet
not absence
as if we’ve died so many little deaths
the body has stopped keeping count

this ending feels like
a well-rehearsed ritual
the last page of a book
we wrote in pencil
softly erasing itself
while we smile and say,
yes
this is how it always was
and was always going to be

what a gentle way to disappear
by becoming more visible
by returning, not to youth
but to the myth of it
and letting it wash over us
one final time

like a sky too blue
to believe in
but still, we look up

If I am everyone and everything
And everything and everyone is me
Why do I feel so ******* lonely?

in another life
i hand myself the softness i craved
the hush of a nursery,
tiny socks folded in drawers,
the scent of baked cookies
and giggles echoing down a hallway i built
with both hands and every part of my heart.

in another life,
i let myself be her
the one who kneels to tie shoelaces
and learns their favorite video game
just to lose on purpose.
the mom who never forgets a bedtime story
even when the world outside forgets
everything else.

but not in this one.
not here.
not when the sky falls in headlines
and safety feels like a myth
told to children too young to know better.

my mother still holds hope
she says:
you’d be a good one.
you’d love so fully, they’d bloom.
but she doesn’t see
that my love is the very reason
i won’t.

because to carry them
into this chaos
this fractured, loud, unforgiving place
feels like betrayal
dressed in lullabies.

so i stay empty,
not from lack
but from a fullness of care
so deep it aches.

and maybe
in another life
i will not love them
by leaving them behind.

mornings are
 hazy green.

not fog.
just something thick

i can’t walk through
without forgetting

what i was doing.

i missed the magnolia bloom.
again.

it’s always

just over.

like it was waiting for me
to look away.

i clench my jaw

until it breaks.
rip my heart out of the chest
only to sew it back again
maybe it’s

placebo happiness

through sadness

just enough feeling

to not feel numb.

just enough

to trick myself

into thinking

this is living.

sometimes

i tell myself

everyone hates me.
not dramatically.
just

like a fact.

like a quiet truth

that’s easier
than
well
uncertainty.

maybe this is
diet joy.
lite living.
a knockoff feeling
from the back shelf
that still gets the job done.
placebo soul.

but lately,
i’m scared of being alone.
the shape of my voice.
it knows me
too well
too precisely,
and wants
something
i forgot how to give.

We cut one another
Down to the very flesh
While we miss each other
Deep inside our bones

Isn’t that ironic?