I am the dandelion stripped bare,
a clock undone by the unkind wind.
The mirrors show only fractures—
golden veins soldered by despair,
a mosaic of bruises in pale flesh.

He smells of bonfires and damp earth,
his words the gravel I swallow nightly.
They lodge in my throat,
sharp, unyielding,
a wound that never softens.

Children scribble lives onto the walls,
their chalk-stained hands clean of memory.
But I, I cradle dust,
collect it in jars like dead stars,
its weight heavy as unspoken apologies.

Autumn’s throat opens,
spilling leaves like confessions
nobody wanted to hear.
The trees, skeletons now,
stand naked in their quiet accusations.

He pushed me into the bloom of violence,
a ****** rose garden beneath my tongue.
I tasted the metal of his hate
and whispered back my surrender,
weak as the wind that kissed my wrists.

Was I ever more than ash,
a ghost of flesh, a runaway child
chased by the shadows of promises
never meant to hold?
The doorway in my eyes collapses inward—
a city burned down before it was built.