I need a break from the world. A pause, a reset, a way to quiet the storm of words that swirl, relentless and unyielding. Laughter spills around me, but it never quite lands—just another echo lost in empty hands, fading before it ever finds a place to rest.
Another day, and I just can’t see anyone truly hearing me. Not really. Not beyond the surface, beyond the smiles and the nods that skim over the parts of me that ache. It isn’t anyone’s duty to pry, to press past my silences, to ask why. I know that. But some part of me still hopes for it—for someone to notice, to ask, to stay.
I lock the door. I throw the key. And yet, in the end, it is only myself I abandon.
Still, I long for something soft. A touch, a whisper, a name spoken with care. I long for the kind of presence that does not ask for explanations, that does not demand to be earned. “Darling, be who you are”—the words sound so weightless, so simple. But light never lingers in the dead of night.
Another day passes, and I search for a eulogy kind enough to rewind, to make sense of the quiet unraveling that happens when no one is looking. But there is no eulogy, only elegy upon elegy—grief stacked upon itself, words buried before they can be spoken.
They say that time heals. But what if the wounds are not meant to heal? What if they sink too deep, settle too comfortably, becoming part of the foundation instead of something to be erased?
I lie awake, wondering if I was ever whole. Or was I just a canvas they scraped for gold, searching for something valuable, something worth keeping? Another day comes, and still, I can’t see a tear shed, a voice raised for me.
Just one elegy on another. And now, there is nothing left to uncover.