After—
I didn’t know
how stuck I was.
I escaped him,
but he never really left.
He lingered
in the shadows of my room,
pressed against the walls of every day.
I felt him
when I walked among the living,
like a whisper clinging
to a version of myself
I thought I’d buried.
But she—
she still lived in my head.
You can outrun the pushing,
the yelling,
the names he carved into your worth,
the floor swaying
beneath gaslit skies—
or so you tell yourself.
But he wanted more.
He wanted your soul to splinter,
to hollow you out,
to rewrite the shape of your wholeness.
And even when you find dry ground,
he tries
to keep drinking from your well.
But I stepped forward—
onto this cracked, solid land.
Then I took another.
With each step,
I dropped a “gift”
he buried in me—
his treasures made of rot.
This walk
is not a sprint.
It’s slow.
But it’s happening.
I’m not whole yet.
But healing
takes time.
And if you look closely—
you’ll see the bruises
are fading
beneath my skin.
The gas
dissolving in light.
The screams
losing their echo.
The tears—
now falling
with relief,
not fear.
Just know:
he tried
to make me disappear.
But the new me,
won’t erase her.
J.N. Rose 