I am the echo I try to outrun,
A shadow that clings to the face of the sun.
Each smile I wear is a borrowed disguise,
A mask to survive in a world built on lies.

I loathe the silence that grows in my chest,
The way I pretend that I’m doing my best.
There’s venom in thoughts I dare not confess
A whisper that says I am nothing, no less.

My hands betray me, they tremble with guilt,
Like architects shamed by the ruins they built.
I tear at the seams of the person I feign,
And stitch myself back with thread made of pain.

No voice ever told me I wasn’t enough,
But mine,soft and cruel,was more than enough.
It carves its initials deep into my skin,
Repeating the cycle I never begin.

I don’t want your pity, I don’t want your grace,
Just leave me to drown in my desolate place.
A cage of my making, each bar forged from fear
I hate what I see when the mirror is near.

Yet still, in the night, something fragile survives,
A flicker, a breath, where despair never thrives.
But I do not chase it,I know how this ends:
In battles with monsters I swore were my friends.

I sat with myself in the quiet of night,
No stars above,just the pale ceiling light.
And there in the silence, a voice came through,
Not a whisper from others,but from me to me, true.

“Hey,” I said softly, “how have you been?
You smile out loud, but you’re aching within.
You joke with the world, you wear the mask well,
But when no one’s watching, you’re locked in your shell.”

I stared at my hands, both empty and tight,
Gripping regrets that visit each night.
I chase after dreams with feet made of doubt,
And wonder why nothing ever works out.

“You blame the world for the pain you feel,
But isn’t it time to start being real?
You wait for change like it’s due to arrive,
But how will it come if you don’t first strive?”

“I know,” I confessed, “I’ve been hiding too long,
Singing the right words but living them wrong.
Expecting the world to hand me a sign,
When the fault and the fix have both been mine.”

“I need to be better,no more disguise,
To face my own demons, to open my eyes.
To be who I am, not who they demand,
To build not with fear, but with my own hands.”

So I sat with myself ‘til the morning grew gold,
A boy and his shadow, growing bold.
And I promised that night to start anew,
Because change won’t come…
'til it first comes from you.

You looked my way when shadows ruled my soul,
When I wore the mask of beasts, not whole
Dominant, selfish, blind to the right,
Unmoved by mercy, lost in might.

Yet something in you sparked a change,
A warmth that felt both deep and strange.
I shed the guise, let truth appear,
Unveiled my eyes, drew you near.

But when I stepped into the light,
Your gaze had turned, lost from sight.
It wasn’t me you saw or knew
Another face had captured you.

Too long I lingered in my cage,
Too slow to temper pride with sage.
So now I wear another guise,
Pretending still behind these eyes.

Not beast, not self, not love, not fire
Just quiet ash of lost desire.
And though you’re gone, I watch, I learn
That sometimes hearts don’t wait their turn.

How beautiful can a person be?
As radiant as dawn upon the sea,
With laughter like a silver stream,
And eyes that hold the softest dream.

Their kindness carves the quiet air,
Like petals drifting unaware,
A gentle word, a steady hand,
A heart the world can't understand.

Not beauty shaped by face or frame,
But in the way they speak your name,
The way they pause, the way they stay,
When others turn and walk away.

They wear no crown, they seek no throne,
Yet lift your soul when you're alone.
They shine with something pure and deep
A peace that even stars would keep.

How beautiful can someone be?
As boundless as eternity.
Not in the mirror’s fleeting grace
But in the light they leave in place.

She walks, and morning learns to blush,
With every step, the roses rush.
The stars, once proud, now dim their light,
For in her eyes, they lose the fight.

Her smile,like dawn that breaks the gray,
It turns my darkest thoughts away.
No poet’s ink, no painter’s hue,
Could ever capture all she’s due.

She doesn’t know, she’ll never see,
How much of her lives deep in me.
She breathes, and all the world feels right,
She speaks, and silence takes its flight.

Each time she laughs, the heavens bloom,
The winds themselves make softer room.
The sky I see is not the same,
Since the day I whispered her name.

She's not just beauty carved in grace,
She's warmth, she’s wonder, time, and place.
And every time she meets my eye,
The whole of me fills with her sky.

I'm in shackles, not looking for keys,
No dreams of escape, no silent pleas.
The iron hugs me like a fate I chose,
But this pain, this ache, only I know.

One by one, I break my bones,
Not in hope, not to atone.
Each crack sings like a prayer gone wrong,
A mournful verse in a forgotten song.

They do not see the blood I spill,
The silent wars, the quiet ****.
They think I sleep, they think I breathe,
But I’m unraveling beneath each sheath.

These shackles aren’t just forged in steel,
They’re made from every wound I feel.
And as my flesh gives in to dust,
So does my soul, so does my trust.

Each snap, a scream that no one hears,
Each fracture, stitched with ghosts and fears.
Not breaking free, but breaking down,
Stripped of name, stripped of crown.

No freedom waits at the end of this game,
Just pieces of me too worn to name.
But still I crack, bone after bone,
Tearing away till I’m fully gone.

Let them wonder what silence means,
I was never bound by chains,
I was bound by me.