I have walked through rooms of my own silence,
where echoes speak louder than hope.
The mirrors know my name,
but they no longer care to call it.

Every thought is a ghost I keep feeding,
every dream — a wound stitched in shadow.
Yet in this quiet ruin,
I find something almost tender:
the stillness that asks for nothing
but my breath.

Perhaps peace was never golden,
but gray —
a soft surrender beneath the ribs,
where pain finally forgets to ache.