I crave the change I also dread,
It dances loud inside my head
For when you’ve lived in chains so long,
They start to feel like where you belong

They bind me tight, they hold me still,
They crush my voice, they break my will,
But in their grip, I’ve come to stay,
And fear the world without their sway

What would I do, if I were free?
No walls, no locks, no weight on me?
This place, though cold, I’ve come to know,
It shaped my steps, it taught me “no.”

My dreams keep whispering through the dark,
But even dreams have lost their spark
For even there, I fear the cost,
Afraid to find what I have lost

I long for joy, yet flinch from light,
I watch it glowing, clear and bright,
But I’ve lived so long in shadow’s arms,
The sun, to me, might do me harm

How can I walk with eyes so gray,
Into a gold and blinding day?
Without the chains to pull me back,
What compass guides the open track?

What rules exist when none remain?
What shape is joy that’s born from pain?
And so I stay, both near and far,
A prisoner who guards their own bar

I think I knew it all along,
My hands were built for breaking, not for song
I tried to hold you soft and true,
But clumsy hearts don’t hold like steady glue

And I think I knew it from the start,
A storm can’t love the stillness of the chart
And so I loosed the knot I tied,
And watched you drift along the evening tide

You were the lighthouse far from reach,
A soul I touched but could not teach
A love I bore but never wore,
A knock I left outside your door

I kept my claws behind the veil,
Afraid they’d carve more grief than tale
You’ll never see the war I fought,
To stay away though near I sought

They’d call me cruel, they’d say I fled,
They’d ask what thoughts ran through my head
Do you recall my quiet hands?
And wonder why they missed demands?

Why they refused to dry your eyes?
Or failed to chase your fading skies?
Why they stood idle at the shore,
And never dared to pull you more?

The truth is this, I feared to bruise
To grip too hard, and still to lose
So I became the ghost you met,
A love you’ll mourn, but not regret

You are the sun to my skies,
Or the moon in my darkness, where loneliness lies
What matters the title, what matters the name?
The metaphor dances, yet meaning’s the same

I scarcely know the depths of my soul,
So how could I ever be radiant and whole?
I cannot be sun, not standing apart
Yet if you were the moon, I’d kindle my heart

I would blaze with a light to enrobe you in gold,
I’d banish the night and the bitter and cold
And if you were the sun, high and bright,
I’d turn to the moon, a thief of your light

I’d play every part to cradle your spark,
A mirror, a beacon, a glow in the dark
And if you were a star, just a lone, burning one
I’d be the vast heavens you rested upon

I would be the arms of the endless skies,
Holding your sorrows, your dreams, and your cries
But truth, if you asked me, with no veil nor art,
I am the Earth, a bruised yet beating heart

I am the soil that feeds and forgives,
A mother to all who wound and yet live
Not one unchanging, eternal flame,
Nor a faithful moon in a tireless game

I bear forests that bloom, and deserts that sigh,
Oceans that rage and rivers that dry
My mountains may crumble, my gardens decay,
My seasons grow wilder and tear me away

While the sun stands unyielding, the moon bows in grace,
I fracture and fracture, I shatter in place
No simple phase, no steady bright hand,
But chaos and kindness and breaking and sand

Still, name any role—I’ll learn every part,
And contort myself to fit into your heart

I never meant to hold your hand
not like that, not for long.
But you held on far too tightly,
fingers locked like chains, clutching as if letting go would mean losing yourself.

And I tried to pull away, quietly, gently at first.
But the more I resisted, the tighter you grasped-until your love became a tourniquet.

Your grip cut through my flesh,
burst blood vessels deep beneath skin,
left bruises no one else could see,
pain I couldn't name out loud.

Still, I stayed.
Still, I let it happen.
Maybe I thought you'd loosen.
Maybe I feared the tearing more than the hold.

And then, suddenly, you let go.
Just like that.
No warning, no softness,
just absence where your hand used to be.

Now, my hands are swollen,
aching with the memory of pressure.
I can't hold anything else
not love, not comfort, not trust.

Everything slips through these trembling fingers that once held too much for too long.
And though you're gone,
your grip still lingers in the way I flinch when someone reaches for me.

I know another man’s junk is another man’s treasure,
for what is worthless to one may be priceless to me
Like the bracelets I gave you just to be rid of them,
not knowing you’d keep one—and return the other to me

Do you still wear yours? I wonder sometimes
Last time I saw you, it clung to your wrist
But I haven’t seen you in so long,
and time is a thief I cannot resist

Like bladeless sharpeners, empty and still,
they serve no purpose, yet I hold them tight
Once, they were escape, a solace in steel,
now, just relics of vanished nights

Like notes you passed, folded with care,
tucked away in a box I cannot discard
Like the jacket I wore whenever I saw you,
kept so I don’t forget—avoided so I don’t remember too hard

I hate remembering, yet forgetting is worse,
a cruelty I fear more than pain
For how could I let go of the things that remain,
when they made all my days what they were?

Now, I cherish your absence,
yet something about it feels untrue
Once, I wept for every moment near you, mourning the space you filled too soon

I begged for distance, craved the quiet, ached for days untouched by you
Yet silence lingers, rich and heavy,
like a ghost that won't undo

I swore I'd never miss your presence,
never yearn for what once pained
Yet even freedom bears the sorrow
of a loss that still remains

I have gathered so many—
petals, names, the quiet ache of becoming
They press against my chest,
too many to count, too many to hold

Still, I gather more,
watching the way they bloom in the light, how they turn toward something unseen,
something certain

And maybe you understand,
how some things are too precious to set down, how we carry them anyway,
even when our arms are full