They come in boxes
alluring, ribbon-tied,
dream-wrapped in silken hush.
But when you open them,
they're hollow inside,
just the silhouette of a longing,
a cradle for what you once desired:
a house,
a name,
a woman beautiful as dawn,
a man carved like myth,
a flight to a heaven
stitched on a postcard.
Each morning,
you pick your heaven or hell,
rush to lock
the door you forgot you left open.
You check it twice,
three times—
but the lock is illusion.
I haven't locked my door in years,
and not one thing
has been taken.
The thief is a ghost,
a scarecrow sewn from fear,
propped in fields of trembling,
a figure we salute
as we bow to chains
we pretend are protection.
They taught us to live
in a soft, relentless panic,
as if breath
were a test,
as if love
were a scantron,
and peace
just a grade.
A test
tasting like life,
but never quite living.
Only the echo of it,
the performance
of something
we once believed
was existence.
