Somewhere inside me
A lantern swings in an unbuilt house
Its light searching for walls
That were never raised
I walk through corridors of air
Palming doorknobs made of memory
Opening into rooms
Where only dust has a name
The absence grows antlers at dusk
Steps softly through my chest
Leaving tracks in the snow
Of my unspoken longing
I follow them anyway
As if they lead to a shrine
I once believed in
There is a well in my ribs
Filled with water that remembers
A thirst I’ve never quenched
When I lean over it
The reflection is always someone
I almost became
A constellation missing
Its brightest star
Some losses are loud
But this one is a symbol
A feather on an untouched altar
A key to a vanished door
A seed that never broke open
Yet still insists on being carried
I am missing the missing
The sacred hollow
The uncarved space
The silent emblem of everything
That never arrived
But somehow
Still leaves a mark