That girl in the mirror is beautiful
Confidence worn like a crown on her head
But once I remember that girl is me
I think she's ugly again

I let him speak,
his words uncoiled like smoke
in the quiet room,
each sentence a serpent
wrapping itself
around the soft throat of the night.

He spoke of boredom,
of voices like dead birds
falling from the trees,
of his hands
searching the air
for the tender pillars of life,
and squeezing,
until silence became a god.

I listened uneasily,
my breath a quiet river,
my heart a stone
sinking into its depths.
His voice brushed against my skin,
and I held it,
like holding a flame
bare-handed.

Then he stopped.
The silence cracked.
His fingers felt my pulse—
a stillness I could not hide.
It betrayed me.
But I, too,
held his hand,
offering my quietness
as a gift,
a wall,
a mirror.

Now I wake in another room,
safe from his dreaming.
But the night carries his voice,
a tide that laps against
the shore of my memory.

Did I save myself?
Did I save him?
Or are we both
adrift in the dark sea
of what was left unsaid?

He gorges on my mistakes, a swollen moon,

pale and taut with the salt of my guilt.

Each night, he leans close, his breath like frost,

presses a kiss to my brow, cold as bone,

and whispers forgiveness I cannot believe.