She speaks in riddles,
laces truths with velvet lies,
paints herself in poise so practised
it gleams like armour polished daily.
But her eyesβ
her eyes are the only thing honest.
And they flicker,
like a candle near its end.
She hides.
Behind wit sharp enough to wound,
behind a smile too perfect
to be anything but a mask.
She hides,
because to be seen
is to be knownβ
and to be known
is to be shattered.
There is a hunger in her
that terrifies her more than hunger itself.
A longing so primal,
it claws at her ribcage
when the lights go out.
But she will not open the door.
She will not let the wild thing free.
Instead, she gulps for air
in rooms that feel like coffins.
Her chest,
a battlefield of silenced screams,
her breath,
a rope around her throat
that tightens every time
she whispers "I'm fine."
No one sees her fracture.
But she does.
When the world is turned away,
she allows a single crackβ
just oneβ
a silent tremble in the stillness.
Then she gathers herself back up,
wraps the costume tight again,
and smiles like sin.
She is tired. So tired.
Each day, a climb up the same cliff
with a fraying rope,
and hands that bleed from holding on.
Each day,
she wonders what it might feel like
to just let
go.
Would they miss her?
Would they feel the shift
in the air where she used to stand?
Or would she vanish
as quietly
as she lived?
She does not know.
And that not-knowing
is its own kind of death.
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