Buried Under My Own Shadows

There are graves
that never meet the earth.

They bloom beneath the ribs,
where names are forgotten
but echoes refuse to die.

I have buried versions of myself
without flowers,
without eulogies,
without anyone noticing
another funeral was quietly underway.

People think loss
always leaves empty chairs.

Sometimes
it leaves mirrors.

I have stood before mine,
searching for a familiar face,
only to find
someone wearing my smile
like borrowed clothing.

How strange
to become homesick
inside your own skin.

The ghosts I fear most
are not the dead.

They are the people
I almost became.

The artist
who never recovered her hands
from survival.

The dreamer
who slowly confused endurance
with living.

The reckless heart
that once believed
love was a destination,
not a demolition site.

They visit often.

Not to haunt me.

To ask
what happened.

I never know
which answer hurts less.

That life happened.

Or that I did.

There is a loneliness
that arrives
long before solitude.

It settles quietly,
rearranges the furniture
inside your chest,
and convinces you
that silence
has always lived there.

I have become
an archaeologist
of my own ruins.

Carefully brushing away
layers of disappointment,
hoping to uncover
something that still breathes.

Most days
I find dust.

Some days
I find anger
still warm.

It amazes me
how heavy invisible things become.

Regret has shoulders.

Shame wears steel-toed boots.

Memory
has perfect aim.

And hope...

Hope is infuriating.

It keeps surviving
like a weed
pushing through concrete,
utterly unaware
it was supposed to die years ago.

I've spent years
mistaking self-protection
for self-erasure.

Building walls
so high
I accidentally locked myself
inside them.

Funny, isn't it?

The prison
had my handwriting
on every brick.

If I have learned anything,
it is this:

You can disappear
without leaving.

You can mourn yourself
while your heart
continues its stubborn work,
beating not because it is happy,
but because it refuses
to ask permission.

Perhaps that is courage.

Not roaring.

Not winning.

Just quietly refusing
to become
another shadow
buried beneath
the weight
of your own.

And if one day
someone asks
where I went,

tell them
I was never lost.

Only excavating
the person
my darkness
tried so beautifully
to hide.