She braided my silence into a crown,
and placed it upon my head.
Was she a ghost I loved too well,
or love that made me ghost?
A wound that dressed itself in silk
A cure that hurt the most
Some nights she bound the fractures,
and stitched the dark with song.
Some nights she unstitched me faster,
and I loved her for it wrong.
They ask me if she saved me.
They ask what her name implies.
I say: star that drowns in daylight,
ghost that teaches lies.
Soreya, Soreya
you bloom in the corner of reason.
Some call you beloved,
but I call you season.
They told me to stop writing her.
They locked all the pens away.
But I still hear her singing
when the mirrors look away.
I don’t know if…
By the time I finish reading, my vision is blurred.
I don’t even realize I’m crying until a tear splashes onto the page, darkening the corner of the paper. I blink hard, but more follow, carving cold lines down my cheeks.
I look up, breath catching.
Christian is leaning against the edge of the desk, arms crossed now, his eyes shadowed with something I recognize as grief.
“Why are you showing me this?” I wipe at my face, uselessly. “Especially if it’s not even finished.”
“Does anything really need to be finished to hold meaning?” He swallows once. His eyes drop to the poem, still open in my hands, before lifting back to meet mine. “And the way he looks at you sometimes…” he says, “Like you’re the last open door in a burning, smoky house.”
I freeze.
