Scars of Silence

We share walls, not a life.
We pass in hallways, ghosts in our own lives.
Footsteps on the stairs, a stranger’s rhythm.
The kitchen table, a battleground of silence.
Cereal bowls, untouched, mirroring my emptiness.

I build castles of blankets,
Searching for warmth in a house turned ice.
My room, a sanctuary,
Where dolls whisper stories you never told.
Your door, a constant silent slam.
Your back, a fortress, impenetrable.

School mornings, a parade of smiling mothers,
I clutch my bag, a shield against their warmth,
A hollow ache where your hand should be.
Years blur, a landscape of unhealed wounds.
Each birthday, a funeral for a mother I never had.
Each day, a brick in a wall I didn’t build.
Love, replaced by the gnawing ache of abandonment.

Now, years later, the house still echoes,
But the silence is mine.
The child within, scarred and ever watchful,
Learns to build her own warmth, her own home.
But the scars remain, etched deep.
A phantom pain, constant and dull.
A map of a childhood stolen, lost in the shadows.
A wound that bleeds in the quiet moments.