Living in a dream state ever since,
walking through the hush of half-lit rooms,
where shadows bloom and voices blur,
and yesterday feels closer than today.
And if we’re really being honest,
I didn’t even understand the magnitude of the loss then—
how could I?
The world cracked quietly,
like a hairline fracture in glass,
invisible until the weight of time pressed harder.
I wore my days like borrowed clothes,
stiff and strange,
smiling in all the wrong places,
laughing too loudly.
Grief was a language I hadn’t learned yet,
a silent syllable tucked beneath my tongue,
a storm cloud too far on the horizon
for me to name as mine.
And so I stayed—
half-asleep, half-awake,
moving through life
as if it might not break me
if I just didn’t look too closely.
