I do not know your name—
only your silhouette
etched in the echo of things I was not given.
Your absence was my alphabet.
I spelled every woman with your ghost.
They loved me.
But I loved you through them.
Your hands behind their voices.
Your eyes haunting their praise.
They were flesh, and I was kneeling.
I made gods of strangers.
I made homes of hunger.
Mother—not mother.
Lover—not lover.
I could not hold the difference.
They all became symbols
and I became a shrinekeeper,
tending lies with tenderness.
Forgive me,
those I touched but never saw.
I was trying to reach through you
and forgot you were not them.
And they were not you.
None of you asked for this altar.
I am dismantling the myth.
I am returning the light.
Jun 18, 2025
Jun 18, 2025 at 4:28 AM UTC
I do not know your name—
only your silhouette
etched in the echo of things I was not given.
Your absence was my alphabet.
I spelled every woman with your ghost.
They loved me.
But I loved you through them.
Your hands behind their voices.
Your eyes haunting their praise.
They were flesh, and I was kneeling.
I made gods of strangers.
I made homes of hunger.
Mother—not mother.
Lover—not lover.
I could not hold the difference.
They all became symbols
and I became a shrinekeeper,
tending lies with tenderness.
Forgive me,
those I touched but never saw.
I was trying to reach through you
and forgot you were not them.
And they were not you.
None of you asked for this altar.
I am dismantling the myth.
I am returning the light.
