born lost

I am born lost—
a breath unclaimed, the echo of a shadow,
held in the cold, indifferent dawn.
The earth hums beneath me, its ribs rising,
and I wait, an unwelcome guest of light.

I am drawn to empty spaces,
to wells long dry and fractured mirrors,
to songs unsung and ghosts forgotten.
The world wears its bruises deep,
and I am the ache it never chose to hold.

I am a visitor here,
in a house that aches with my name,
walls that whisper when I turn away.
I learned early how to make silence a friend,
to weave it around my wrists,
wear it like a scarlet thread of belonging.

They say the stars chart our paths,
but mine slipped away—
a spark caught in wind, a faint memory,
smudged across the night like an afterthought.
Born lost, what guides me?
What compass pulls when even the earth
spins in its hollow, unsteady hands?

I speak in the language of ghosts,
cracked syllables and slivered breaths.
I peel back my skin like paper,
searching the lines for some map,
some sign that there was ever more to me
than dust, than bone, than the shadows
that have always known my name.

Born lost, I drift,
a moth at the window of this world,
fingers tracing the cold glass.
I wonder if it would be enough—
to feel the heat of a single, steady flame,
to be whole,
to belong, if only for a moment.