too many tender souls lost
in a solitary maze
aching and unseen in a vast urge of wrong words
echoes in empty rooms
a symphony of unexpressed routines
eat away at our feet

I keep telling myself
You're the one that left
You're the one who said what they meant
Now hoping for the end of the world
All those words feel weightless
Burning holes on every page that I
Find your name on
Days and weeks keep changing
Everything I hate and everything I keep
Feels harder to swallow
Are things better?

a shadow calling me
not with voice
but with the weight of memory pressed against my spine
a hush that drips from the ceiling
and pools at my feet
I walk toward it
not because I want to
but because the air tastes like unfinished sentences
and I’ve always struggled with leaving things unsaid
it doesn’t beckon
it waits
like a question I forgot to ask
or a name I almost remembered
I think it knows me
the way I flinch at kindness
the way I catalog every silence
as if it might one day bloom into an apology
I think it’s mine
the shadow
the echo
the flicker in the corner of my eye
that disappears when I turn
I keep moving
not forward
not back
just through
through the ache of recognition
through the static of old grief
through the soft collapse of what I thought I was
a shadow calling me
and I answer
by becoming quieter
than I’ve ever been

We are underwater,
not swimming,
not moving—
just sinking in place,
two statues shaped like almost-touching.

The light from above is scattered,
a broken language we can’t translate.
I don’t know if it’s day or night
or if your eyes are even open.

There’s a silence that doesn’t wait to be broken.
It’s thick,
a velvet hush that presses against my chest
like a hand that doesn’t know if it’s trying to save me
or hold me still.

I want to reach for you,
but I am afraid my fingers will dissolve in the space between us.
I am afraid your face will change
if I come too close,
and I will know you.
Really know you.

And then I won’t be able to look away.

We hover like myths,
caught mid-thought,
mid-movement,
mid-breath—
but there is no breath.
No sound.
No heartbeats.

Just pressure.
Just stillness pretending to be peace.

If I moved, even an inch,
would you move too?
Or would I see that you are already stone,
that I have always been alone
next to the shape of someone
almost like me.

And so we stay—
motionless,
witnesses to each other’s fear,
entombed in the endless hush
of water pretending to hold us.

a flicker in the periphery
noticed but unnamed
the shoulder shift across the room
the wind's breath curling around ankles
a finger drum on the table’s edge

it might be nothing
or it might be you—
maybe even you

is that your shadow in the hallway?
or just a leftover
from yesterday's light?

someone turns a page
and suddenly
the air listens
the ceiling exhales

you are the idea behind the idea
the heartbeat behind the curtain
a shiver without reason
the pause before speech

any movement—
the bend of a branch
the slow lean of a thought
the breath caught in
the middle of yes

maybe you
maybe
even
you

who touches the world and pulls it slightly out of focus
just enough
to mean something

I didn’t listen  
not at first  
not when the words were soft  
or when they cracked  
or when they came wrapped in silence  
because silence is easy to ignore  

you were trying  
to say something  
not with your mouth  
but with your eyes  
your posture  
the way you stopped laughing  
without telling anyone why  

I was busy  
being loud  
being clever  
being the kind of person people look at  
but don’t see  

you said  
listen  
and I thought you meant  
hear  
but you meant  
feel  
you meant  
stay  
you meant  
don’t turn away  
just because it’s uncomfortable  

I kept missing it  
the ache in your voice  
the way your sentences trailed off  
like they were afraid of their endings  
and I let them  
I let you  
fade  

now I replay it  
the moments I brushed past  
the pauses I filled  
the truths I dodged  
and I wonder  
what would’ve happened  
if I had shut up  
just once  
and let you be  

you weren’t asking for answers  
just space  
just presence  
just someone who didn’t need to fix you  
to prove anything  
to win  

I hear you now  
too late maybe  
but I do  
and it’s louder  
than anything I ever said

watched you  
rain on glass  
didn’t knock  
just stayed  

you moved  
unaware  
or pretending  
either felt the same  

said things  
too quiet  
maybe truer that way  
maybe not  

you leaned  
but not toward me  
just into your silence  

reflection  
not mine  
not yours  
just something  
almost  

wanted to fade  
not vanish  
just  
softer
into  
you  

your pauses  
felt like rooms  
I wanted to live in  

center?  
no  
echo  
warmth  
after  

you  
here  
but not  
always  
somewhere  
else  

me  
trying  
to be  
wherever  
you  
weren’t

I take it  
because the world was too loud  
too sharp  
too much  
and now it’s quieter  
but also  
less  

I don’t cry anymore  
which feels like winning  
until I realize  
I don’t laugh either  
not the kind that shakes your ribs  
not the kind that makes you forget  

I’m not drowning  
but I’m not swimming  
I’m just  
floating  
in a pool that doesn’t change temperature  
no waves  
no storms  
just still  

people say  
you seem better  
and I nod  
because I am  
technically  
but I miss the chaos  
the color  
the ache that reminded me I was alive  

I sleep  
I eat  
I function  
like a well-oiled machine  
but sometimes  
I want to rust  
just a little  
just enough to feel the weather  

I know it’s working  
I know it’s helping  
I know  
but I also know  
there’s a version of me  
buried under the dosage  
who used to feel everything  
too much  
and maybe  
that wasn’t all bad

the words swell at the back of the throat
not sharp, not graceful,
just swollen, sticky things
that taste of rusted mirrors and dust

they scrape against teeth
as if begging for release
but the mouth betrays them
lips clamp shut, jaw wired tight
and the body remembers
how silence can arrive dressed as shelter

apologies ferment there
growing bitter,
soured by delay and shame
they roll around the tongue as gravel that thinks itself precious stone
until even breath carries the weight of a cathedral underwater

each inhale interrupted,
as though contrition itself
is a hand pressed firm against the windpipe
reminding me regret is not air
regret is a shadow stitched to bone
regret is residue that glows faintly in the dark

and the chest shudders
a body trying to cough out
something it cannot name
something lodged between
what should be spoken
and what should stay buried

I choke,
but nothing escapes
except the silence
and the heat of a throat
burning with everything
I meant to give away.

nothing
not the absence but the hum
a low and breathing hum that curls around thought
soft and enormous, like sleep that never began

there is no edge
no gate, no watcher at the boundary
only the fall backward
into the colorless swell
into airless grace
the kind of grace that asks for no praise

I forget
what I was saying,
and isn’t that the gift?
the quiet slipping of meaning,
words unraveling mid-sentence
and floating like ash
weightless, harmless, warm

this is where clocks don’t go
where names don’t press into skin
where I don’t end and begin
because I don’t

a soft exhale
a light that isn't light
filling every place
with the sound of
no footsteps
no questions
no hunger
just—

nothing

and in it
I bloom without form
stretch
without reaching
exist
without needing to be seen.

I didn’t ask for angels  
or bullets  
or love that felt like a ransom note  
but here we are  
driving nowhere  
with the sky unraveling in a bad alibi  

you talk as if chaos is a language  
and I’m fluent now  
in your kind of logic  
where nothing makes sense  
but everything matters  

I was ordinary  
until you stole me  
not just from my job  
or my apartment  
but from the version of myself  
that never asked for more  

you said  
let’s make a mess  
let’s rob the stars  
let’s kiss, we’re fugitives from fate  
and I didn’t say no  
because I didn’t know how  

I keep waiting  
for the part where it all falls apart  
where the gods get bored  
and the magic wears off  
but you keep dancing  
and the world owes us a soundtrack  

I don’t believe in destiny  
but I believe in you  
in the way you look at me  
I’m not broken  
just misfiled  

we’re not heroes  
we’re not sane  
we’re just two people  
who refused to be background noise  
and maybe  
that’s enough  

---

Want to explore this in a surreal visual style next? Something that captures the absurd romance and divine mischief of the film’s tone?

you built me wrong
fed me your voice
tore my face to fit it
now I live in your mouth
and bite back

you made me wrong and now I rot in your head where you can’t scrape me out.

steam rises from frostbitten skin,
they said it was for science,
for progress—
numbers on clipboards,
organs cataloged in silence.

no names, just codes,
just subjects,
just logs.

the scalpel doesn’t ask why,
it only slices.

truth drowned in the cold basin,
the body still twitches,
or maybe that’s memory—
not theirs, mine.

no screams in the snow anymore,
just echoing metal doors and
footsteps that never question.

I remember a woman
pregnant, or maybe not,
they injected something,
watched her belly rise like dough
rotting from within.

flesh cracks like ice,
and the children,
they thought it was school.
what lesson is this?
how blood behaves in freezing air?

rats chew through infection,
glass vials hum with secrets
no one was meant to know,
and still—
they documented everything
with careful hands.

no ghosts here,
only data.
only results.
only how long it takes
for a man to stop blinking
when you cut off
his eyelids.

I see white coats,
but not doctors.
I see purpose,
but not mercy.

Manchuria swallowed the truth,
but it leaks—
through whispers,
through unmarked graves,
through the hollow bones of
those who never knew
why.

the snow keeps falling.
the past does not.

under a bright light you’d find every crooked line I’ve got
not just the ones on skin
but the ones that don't speak unless cornered
the ones that sleep under laughter
wait until silence stretches too long
then rise, flickering, like old film burned at the edges

I keep thinking
there’s something noble in hiding
or maybe it’s just easier to control the story when no one else can read it
my voice stumbles when I try to make sense of the mess
the kind of mess that doesn’t make noise
but hums beneath
like a bad memory that learned how to walk quietly

I think of all the times I turned away from mirrors
or watched myself in reflections that blurred at the corners
windows at night, when the outside is black and the inside is exposed
that’s the kind of light I mean
not a warm glow
but the surgical kind
the interrogation kind
the truth kind
that wants to know more than I’m ready to give

and maybe I am all angles
maybe I am the sketch that never made it past the rough draft
smudged with too many tries
too many redos
too much holding my breath when I should have been screaming

if you saw it
all of it
would you trace those lines gently
or flinch like they might cut you?

wrong—
no—
not me—
you think me into a shape that splits at the seams
skin folds inside-out
teeth where the eyes should be

your thought is a cage made of guesses
bars bending inward
cutting my ribs each time you remember me wrong
blood pooling in letters you’ll never read

stop
stop
stop
you’re sewing me together with rusted wire
hands too eager, eyes too blind
each stitch a scream I can’t get out of my throat

I am not the doll you built in the dark
I am the rot beneath it
the smell in the walls
the shadow that won’t match your light

think of me again and I’ll splinter in your skull
leave splinters in your hands when you try to pull me out
you’ll bleed thinking my name

there is a shadow of me
hanging in the air between other people’s words
a sketch someone drew once
and then forgot to color in
you touch it sometimes
with your glances, with the way you form my name in your head
but you never stay long enough to see the edges

i can feel you thinking of me
in the wrong shape
the wrong colors
a dream you half-remember in the morning
where my face is blurred
and my voice comes out of someone else’s mouth

i want to reach into your thoughts
and rearrange the furniture
move the windows so you can see me
without the curtain
without the fog

but you keep carrying the idea of me
a folded paper you never open
afraid it might tear
or worse
that it won’t say what you want it to say

wrong face
wrong mouth
you're a coat i found in the street
it smells like rain and someone else’s skin

your thought has my eyes
but they’re glass
rolled back
seeing nothing
still staring at me

i hear your version of my voice
it comes from the wrong throat
all teeth
wet with lies i didn’t tell

stop building me from your scraps
stop filling my body with your hands
like stuffing a dead thing
propped in a corner for display

i’m not the thing you hold in your head
i’m the thing that rots outside it
the thing you wouldn’t recognize
if it tore itself open in front of you

static in my teeth
when you think of me
it tastes like pennies and wet paper
you hold a version of my face
a Polaroid left in the rain
the colors bleed toward the corners
until the eyes are just dark water

you build me in your head with crooked bones
misremember the length of my shadow
give me hands that never fit my wrists
and a smile that isn’t mine
it hangs too wide, like you stretched it
in the wrong dimension

i can feel it—
your thought of me—
moving under my skin
a fish under ice
slipping away when i reach for it
my reflection shatters
before i even know what it looked like

stop dreaming me into the wrong shape
but don’t stop dreaming
i need the heat of your gaze
even if it warps me
even if i don’t survive the translation

someone’s thinking of me right now
but it’s not me
it’s the costume
the wax mask
the placeholder

white noise between our brains
fingers tapping glass that won’t break
maybe if you press hard enough
you’ll touch the outline of me
but not the marrow

you make up my voice
invent my pauses
assign meaning to the tilt of my head
I’m a character in your private mythology
and I don’t know the script

half-formed versions of me
spill out of you
sketches torn from the spine of a notebook
edges curled
wrong lines inked in permanent

stop thinking I’m the thing you built
and then
keep thinking of me anyway

stop thinking me wrong
you’re peeling me alive in your head
pulling teeth that were never mine
stuffing the gaps with your voice

I am not the shape you hold
I am the splinter you swallow
the rot that chews back
think me again
and I’ll stay inside you

—wrongwrongwrong—
face peeling in your head
you hold it up to the light, it drips
eyes run down your fingers like oil
can’t see me but you keep
naming me / shaping me / twisting me into your mouth
it hurts in places I don’t have anymore

STOP.
you’re pulling skin over bones that aren’t mine
wrists bent the wrong way
voice comes out as static, nails, wet cloth in the throat
you like it better this way
don’t you
don’t you

I am breaking in your mind right now
splitting along the grain of your memory
black leaking out between thoughts
you wipe it away but it smears
gets in your teeth
I hear you biting down on me

don’t think me again
don’t—
I’ll crawl out jagged
I’ll leave holes in you
you’ll never stop feeling them with your tongue