Beneath the piano's lid
lays a maestro murdered mid sonata.
while the ballroom spun in lace and lies.
The revelers fled, but their souls stayed.

The chandelier still shivers,
as if remembering the scream that shattered the final waltz.
The floorboards remember the rhythm of panic.
A trail of pearls leads to the piano,
like breadcrumbs for the dead

Mirrors fracture under the weight of secrets.
They spill secrets like cold blood.
The portraits have no eyes now.
Their gaze dissolved from knowing.
They saw the music beg for mercy.
They saw the conductor’s baton become a dagger.

The piano plays itself at midnight.
His breath trapped in the strings,
trying to finish the song that killed him.
The keys have no fingerprints.
as if guilt wore its manners.

And in the corner
the last guest remains.
A widow in bone-white gloves,
She waits for the song to end.

crimson is the body of the fawn,
lifeless on the shoulder.
her mouth hangs open,
gashes trace her ribs.
her disfigurement forcing her
to curl in on herself.
tonight, the earth will envelop her with its caress,
returning her most of her to the dirt she was before.
only her bones will remain
unnaturally positioned from impact.

They taught us to dissect frogs,
but not the feeling of being dissected.
We memorized the bones of empires,
but no one named the fracture in our own spines.

We wake up with hearts in our throats,
trap ourselves in flickering cages,
Pout like mannequins  in group shots.
We google "how to disappear"
between lectures on resilience.
We draft essays on survival ,
while planning exits.
We smile at teachers who praise
our punctuality while we
count pills under the desk.


The counselor called us in one by one,
handed us pamphlets
with smiling cartoon brains.
Just ticked boxes
and sent us back to class
with a sticker that said “brave.”
which curled by noon.

When the windows whispered
and the knives called us by name,
they called it depression.
It wasn't.
It was syllabus.
We were just doing the homework.