haunting
I’ve loved those
who opened their arms
as long as I knew not to spill.
The quiet ones
who slept in my silence
like it was theirs to rest in,
never noticing
how much I bled
to keep the room still.
The loud ones
who needed to feel like gods,
so I made altars of my softness
and called it worship
because I didn’t know
the name of what I was losing.
I’ve loved
the flicker of something vast
not because it stayed,
but because it showed me
what it was to be lit
without setting myself on fire.
I’ve folded myself into smaller rooms
just to be let inside.
Trimmed my edges
to slip through doors
that were never meant to hold me.
I bent
spine and voice,
breath and wanting
until I disappeared into something palatable.
And they said I was easy to love.
I waited
to be seen
by eyes that only wanted warmth,
never wonder.
And I called that love.
Control wore kindness like perfume.
Safety was a room with no air.
And fire
fire always vanished
before I could ask if it would stay
when the flames died down.
They mistook me
for a turning point.
A fever dream.
The strange girl in the story
right before the hero finds his name.
No one asked
what it cost
to be the haunting they remembered
but never chose.
I’ve been
the bed they collapsed into.
The hush before their decisions.
The echo beneath their healing.
I loved in pieces
because that’s all they reached for.
But maybe there’s more to me
than what they could carry.
More than the parts
they found beautiful
when I was quiet enough
to forget myself.
Maybe I’m still remembering
what I was
before I learned to fold.
Or maybe I was always
just on the edge
never fully here,
never fully gone.
And maybe, just maybe
that’s where I belong.
