The kid in me stares,
through the wreckage I call my life.

His lips tremble with questions
I’ll never have the courage to answer.

His eyes do the screaming—
a silent howl that claws through my chest
and leaves me gasping for air I can’t find.
He stands there, barefoot and trembling,
holding pieces of me I swore I’d never let go of.

He’s asking me questions I don’t have answers to.
Why did I leave him in the dark?
Why did I trade his light for this hollow shell?
Why did I let the world win?
Why?
I want to tell him it wasn’t my fault—
that the cracks started small,
and before I knew it,
I was too broken to hold him.
But that would be a lie, wouldn’t it?

He only knows that I was supposed to protect him.
And I didn’t.

I left him.
I let him to rot in the shadows of my survival.
I buried him under all the things I couldn’t bear to feel.
And now he stands here,
small and fragile and impossibly naive,
holding my guilt in his tiny hands
like it’s something he’s willing to forgive.

But I can’t forgive myself.
Not for what I’ve done to him.
Not for the way I’ve become everything
he used to fear.
Not for the way I let the world cut him up,
piece by piece,
while I stood by and called it growing up.

And God,
I want to tell him I’m sorry.
But what’s the point?
Sorry doesn’t unburn the bridges.
Sorry doesn’t bring back the innocence
I traded for armor that doesn’t even fit.

He watches me burn,
and I can see it—
the confusion, the betrayal,
the faint, flickering hope
that I might still save us.

But how do I tell him
that the flames are mine?
That I struck the match,
fed the fire,
let it consume everything we were
just to survive?

He doesn’t know
what it feels like to be gutted by people who swore they loved you.
He doesn’t know
how heavy it gets when you carry the weight of everyone’s indifference.
He doesn’t know
that there’s no bottom to this kind of pain—
just an endless free fall.

But he will.
One day, he will.

And when that day comes,
he’ll look at me again,
with those same pleading eyes,
that same puzzled look.
And I’ll still have no answers.
Just this fire,
and the ashes of who we might’ve been.

I want to scream at him,
shake him,
make him understand—
that this wasn’t the plan,
that I didn’t choose this.
But the truth is heavier than any excuse.
I broke him.
And I know it.

He looks at me with pleading eyes,
as if I can fix this.
As if I can go back.
But how do I tell him that I’m too far gone?
That the fire raging inside me
isn’t something I want to put out?
That I’ve grown to love the way it burns,
even as it devours what’s left of us?

He steps closer,
and I flinch.
I can’t bear it—
the hope in his eyes,
the quiet belief that I can still be something better.
Because I can’t.
Because I won’t.

He reaches out,
his tiny fingers brushing against my burnt skin,
and for a moment,
just a moment,
I feel it.
The weight of what I’ve lost.
The pieces of myself I’ve scattered to the wind,
never expecting that one day I’d want them back.

But I can’t hold him.
I can’t let him in.
Because if I do,
he’ll see what I’ve become.
He’ll see the ashes,
the emptiness,
where a heart used to be.

And he doesn’t deserve that.
He doesn’t deserve me.

So I turn away.
I let the fire take me.
I let the flames rise higher,
consuming what’s left of the kid
I couldn’t protect.

Behind me,
I hear him whisper.
It’s not anger,
or hatred,
or even sadness.
It’s worse.
It’s hope.

“Come back,” he says.
“Please.”

But I don’t.
I can’t.
Because the truth is,
I don’t know how to.
And maybe I never will.

So I just watch him watching me,
until he fades into the smoke,
leaving me alone in the ashes—
a stranger to the boy
I was supposed to protect.

I look for him in the mirror,
but he’s gone.
And all that’s left staring back at me
is the shell of someone
he used to believe in.

One day, you wake up
and you’re not you anymore.
You look in the mirror,
but the eyes are empty,
like someone else is living there.

You didn’t notice it happening,
how you gave away pieces of yourself
just to fit, just to please.
A thousand small moments,
a smile you didn’t mean,
a “yes” when you screamed “no” inside.

You thought you were strong.
But you let them carve you down,
chisel by chisel,
until there’s nothing left but the shell
of who you used to be.

It doesn’t happen all at once.
It’s the slowest kind of death,
the kind where you’re still breathing,
but you’re gone.

And the worst part?
You did it to yourself.
Not with a knife,
but with silence,
with pretending,
with forgetting what you’re worth—
until one day,
you can’t even remember
who you used to be.

you’ve lost track of who you were —
a shadow,
a stranger in your own reflection.

you’ve erased the memory
of who you were,
now lost to the emptiness
you created.

I’m weird,  
for dreaming in broad daylight,
for speaking in riddles,
and letting my silence speak louder than words.  

I’m weird,
because my thoughts spill out in silence,
hovering on my lips like secrets,
and when I speak,
the world looks away,
as if the truth in my voice
is something they’re not ready to hear.

I’m weird,
for finding beauty in broken things—
the fragments others throw away,
and in the bruises I hide beneath my skin.
They whisper stories,
reminding me of the pieces I hold together in myself,
stories (that) only I seem to understand.

I’m weird,  
because I laugh when I want to cry,  
and cry when no one else does—  
my tears fall for the stars,  
and my heart breaks for the moon.  
I feel too much,  
love too fiercely,  
as if my soul was made  
for a world too fragile to last.

I’m weird,
for I don’t fit in the spaces they give me,  
so I carve my own,  
even if it means standing  
on the edge, alone.

But if weird is what I am,  
then let it be,  
for I’d rather be this beautiful ache,  
this painful bloom of something true,  
than fold myself small enough  
to fit into a world  
that never made room  
and never will.

I’m weird,  
and maybe that’s the best thing I’ll ever be—  
not perfect, not easy to understand,  
but real, raw,  
and unashamed  
of every odd, jagged piece  
that makes me whole.

I’ve learned to find comfort in the quiet,  
Where my thoughts are my only company,  
And in the quiet moments, I wonder
if the comfort of solitude is worth the ache of being unknown

I’ve grown accustomed to the stillness,  
To the certainty that I need no one,  
And no one needs me.  

But sometimes,  
A flicker of something else emerges,  
A longing I can’t quite place or name.  

It comes in brief flashes,  
When I see others laugh together,  
When I hear someone speak my name with genuine care,  

And for a fleeting moment,  
I wonder what it might feel like.  
To be held in the circle of someone’s warmth,  

To be seen not as a passing shadow,  
But as something more.

Yet, just as quickly as it comes,  
I pushed it away.  
Perhaps it’s safer here.  

In the silence I’ve known,  
Where there are no expectations,  
No disappointments,  

Only the steady rhythm of solitude  
That has always been my own.  

Still, sometimes in the quiet of the night,  
I wonder if, somewhere deep inside,  
I am waiting for something  
Or someone  

To break through this stillness,  
And remind me what it means  
To belong.