You press your face against my window,
breath fogging the pane where lamplight spills
a moth convinced the flame is mocking it,
that warmth itself is violence.
My laughter lands on you like ash.
Each meal I share with those I love
is salt ground slow into the wound
you've nursed for years, tended like a garden.
How dare he bloom unbruised,
you whisper to your shadow.
How dare his tongue know only
the shape of what it means.
My honesty offends you most
that I can walk without the weight
of masks stacked in my marrow,
while you've forgotten your own face.
So you've made hatred your inheritance,
a house with rooms enough
to hold each joy of mine
and darken it to something you can own.
But here's the truth that cuts:
you do not hate me,
no,
you hate the mirror that I am,
reflecting back the self you buried
somewhere beneath the envy,
beneath the years of choosing thorns,
where something bright once lived
and still, perhaps, is breathing.
I'll leave the window lit.