“Abandonment issues”

There are shadows in the corners where the light will never go,  
A splintered echo pacing steps my memory used to know.  
I learned the shape of silence, how it presses on the skin,  
When doors shut softly, kindly—never quite inviting in.

Young—that word meant fingertips left reaching in the air,  
A birthday cake half-candled, my father’s empty chair.  
The clock hands made a promise: with morning you’ll be found—  
But love was made of smoke and wind, it simply wasn’t sound.

So I stitched my heart in patches, thread of silver, hope and brine,  
Named each ragged seam a lesson: “Never yours, but always mine.”  
I built with cautious laughter, made friends with empty rooms,  
Danced waltzes with the shadows, spun riddles with the gloom.

Yet sometimes in the golden dusk, a voice will almost call—  
And childhood’s haunted footfalls curl beneath the evening’s shawl.  
Still—hope peeks through the cracks and dust, as daffodils in spring—  
That broken things may yet endure, and broken birds may sing.

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