i don’t heal
i harden.
every wound a callus,
every goodbye
another brick in the wall i’m building
around the last piece of me
that still feels anything.
they say time mends.
they say scars fade.
they say a lot of things
from the safety
of not being me.
i’ve stopped chasing light.
started lighting fires instead.
small ones.
slow ones.
just enough to keep warm
without burning the whole place down.
yet.
some nights,
i write your name in the ash.
just to remember
how it felt
before the burn
taught me how to survive.