There is no me without you;
You made that truth.
Broke me, changed me,
Put poison in my roots.
Pruning, trimming,
Tightening the noose.
All of those alterations for a version of you.
I hate myself now, you win.
I hate my mind, my body, my skin.
All that makes me, me.
But did you truly hate me?
Or did you hate the pieces that reminded you of Him?
You became obsessed and tried burning my rot, but it wasn't just me on the family plot.
Your fire scorched all the ones we love,
All because I bear his blood.
Or was it my reflection you despised,
A mirror of your own eyes?
I can sympathize;
I hate most parts of myself,
But that does not dignify the years I have cried, All because you couldn't love yourself.
The cracks in our foundation are all that is left,
You can do a factory reset,
But I remember all the poison you have said.
I remember all of the lies, the pain, and the Deafening silence while the blade was on my Skin.
But you never saw,
The hurt I held close to my heart,
Or the blood I couldn't keep within.
So please be patient with me while I heal,
For the wounds you inflicted run deeper than You know,
But I am a survivor and I will emerge stronger Than before.

My dreams are not soft things
They do not whisper or drift
They crash into me
Like memory
Like loss I never earned but still carry

I see faces I’ve never touched
Eyes that look through me like they’ve known me for lifetimes
Hands that reach
Just as I begin to fall

I wake with stories still unfolding
Mouth half-formed around names that vanish
Chest aching with love
for people I’ve never met outside my sleep

Sometimes I lie still
Eyes open
But not here
Not ready to belong to this body
this room
this gravity

Reality waits
with its empty inboxes and worn-out clocks
It doesn’t ask if I’m okay
It just goes on
as if I didn’t just leave a world that almost felt like home

But I keep waking
Even when it hurts
Even when the dream begs me to stay
Because somewhere in the quiet ache of morning
There’s a sliver of light
A whisper that maybe
what I dream
is a map
not a mistake

And maybe one day
I’ll follow it back
not to sleep
but to something real
that finally feels
like dreaming with my eyes open

I was a gifted child. Until I wasn't. I was the golden girl. Until I couldn't burn anymore.
My parents expected me to build wings of gold and fly further than anyone could ever try. I don't blame them, having a child to raise is like sculpting a clay ***, you can shape it the way you like, paint it the color you fancy. To raise a child is to play God. To raise a child is to be God.
But to be a child is to fall, to make mistakes, to fail. The thing about being too bright at an early age means you burn out by the time you're 16 and suddenly the world around you becomes more gray and terribly, terribly lonely. The fire is never warm enough, nothing is ever enough. And one day you find yourself begging to a godless sky, begging for a new spark.

Your demons don’t play well with mine,
They bite and they bruise and entwine.
Yours weaponize tears,
Mine whisper, come near.
The chaos is purely divine.

Yours gasp for the rush of cool air,
Mine drown in your scent, flesh, and stare.
Yours vanish like shame;
Mine burn all the same,
Still lit by the hunger we bear.

We drift toward escape, dark and slow,
They bloom with our secrets and grow.
Yours pull at my seams;
Mine knot in your dreams.
A dance only demons could know.

You long to return to a love you’ve never had.
A love that sits and wraps its arms around you—
Like a weighted blanket in the middle of the night.

The kind that seeps into a Sunday,
When the sun hits your shared coffee mugs just right.
The grocery run where his hand grazes yours,
And your heart skips like it’s never been touched that gently before.

The kind that leaves echoes.

You imagine them at the sink,
Brushing their teeth, half-laughing as they talk
Their voice, soft, tired, but loving—
And you smile too, even though no one’s there.

So here you are, chasing echoes—
Echoes that your soul remembers but you do not.
You can only imagine.

And still,
You leave the porch light on.
Just in case.