Cracks in the Frame

Cracks in the Frame

We sat at the table,

smiles like chipped china,

pretending love is louder

than the silence in the room.

Everyone spoke in riddles

with forks and knives for tongues,

and I, the youngest ghost,

tried to haunt where I once belonged.

You ask if I’m okay

with eyes that don’t wait for answers.

You want normal,

but I’ve been carrying storms

in my bloodstream for years.

This mind doesn’t come clean

just because the dishes do.

You say, “It wasn’t that bad,”

as if the measure of pain

needs your approval.

As if forgetting is healing.

As if silence is peace.

But I remember everything—

the slammed doors,

the late-night cries no one claimed,

the ache of trying to be

what no one ever was for me.

There’s disappointment

stitched into the curtains,

woven into birthday cards

signed without meaning.

We are a family in photos only,

cropped smiles and blurred truths.

And still I love you—

not for what you are,

but for what I once needed you to be.

And that might be

the cruelest kind of love there is.