She was not accustomed to kindness,
those gentle hands that held her,
soft like the breath of an answered prayer,
her bruises mended by strangers' sighs.
The sky whispered fragments of blue,
trees bent their branches towards her,
as if to cradle what the world had broken.

But they—oh, they—
turned her spirit on itself,
herded her like cattle
through corridors of regret,
or like lost souls in purgatory,
each step echoing a hymn of betrayal.

You cannot silence the ghosts,
their voices thin,
like needles threading the night.
They call in relentless whispers,
turning her heart into a restless sea,
a place where sleep is an exile
and dreams are unwanted guests.

No one asked her what she wanted,
not in that world of smoke and shadow.
They left her, discarded like ash,
as if she had no fire to offer.
A river of blood, her silent anthem,
flowed beneath her solitary feet.

Until a stranger came,
wrapped in the cloak of autumn,
bearing a voice like broken violins,
each note carrying a promise of salvation.
His hands moved gently,
as if piecing together
a stained-glass window of shattered lives.

She was not accustomed to kindness,
but she let herself be held.
And somewhere between the sky and the trees,
she began to believe
that even the unwanted
are worthy of love.