You Were Never Here

in between—

places that never let you in,

beds that shake you off like dust,

that swallow warmth before it sets,

like a body rejecting the transplant.

-

rain sutures the glass shut,

pulled too tight, skin split at the seams.

The city flickers - a misfire,

a stutter between frames,

an image slipping through cracked film.

The faces you left behind do not tune in,

do not search the static for your voice.

You are an absence that does not echo.

-

you could be anywhere,

any city, any room,

but always the same alien—

a guest never meant to arrive,

a ghost they keep replacing.

-

no way back—

not because the doors are locked,

but because the walls would spit you out

like something sour on the tongue.

Even the echoes refuse your shape,

rearrange themselves for someone else.

-

the city exhales—

but it is not breath, it is erasure,

and the space where you stood

does not stay empty for long.

.