Some things aren’t meant to be shared.
Some truths are too raw, too holy. They stay locked inside—buried deep like treasure we’re too afraid to spend. Even when trust runs deep, there are sacred chambers inside the soul, untouched by anyone else’s hands. That quiet conversation we have with ourselves—it’s not for the world. It’s not even for those we love. It’s ours alone. The gentle words we whisper when no one’s listening, the quiet prayers we speak into the night, those are the last real things we own.
But no matter where you were on this spinning planet, I could always locate your ghost.
Not the kind that haunts places. The kind that haunts people. You never walked in the open—you lived under the radar, dancing in and out of shadows, playing truth or dare with demons you called friends. Always one step removed, always half a second away from destruction. Lying to yourself like a gambler who swears the next hand will turn the tide, while the house burns behind them. And everyone thought you were just fine. Just normal. But you weren’t.
You were the one who fit in everywhere and nowhere. The one I saw all the paths stretched out for—every left, every right, every cliff edge and detour. You were the one I wanted to save. But you can’t save someone who doesn’t believe they’re drowning.
There was a cage in your mind and the bars were made of fear. You lived afraid, but you lived on the edge anyway. Like tempting fate would somehow give you the answers you were too afraid to ask for. You entered places you didn’t belong, slid through rooms like a ghost looking for a body to call home. Afraid to be—but always being. Running from the mirror because the truth was too damn simple.
You wanted respect, but treated yourself like trash. Ego the size of Everest, soul curled up like an abandoned child in a dark alley. You surrounded yourself with wolves—called them friends. But they were only circling, waiting for the scent of failure. And deep down, you never felt safe in your own skin. Wanting nothing, having nothing, yet demanding everything life could offer. The curse of contradiction—hungry but never willing to eat.
The oldest cliché dressed up as something special. Mental illness so deep it dyed your blood. Depression so loud it made silence unbearable. The monster under the bed? It was never under the bed. It was in the mirror. The high was heaven, but the fall was hell. And we all watched it happen in real time—circles and spirals and crashes we couldn’t stop. You were burning and laughing. Running and unraveling. I wanted to call out. I did. I wanted to reach in and grab you by the soul. But when the train leaves the tracks, love can’t fix the steel.
You have to choose: save them, or save yourself.
And I hated that choice. Hated what it made me become. Another face in the blur. Another person who tossed out a rope too late. You didn’t need a savior. You needed a mirror that wouldn’t lie to you. But those are rare, and usually hated.
When you were at your best, we could talk about grains of sand like they were stars. You laughed like you remembered being free once. And I felt it—this old pull on my soul, like we’d done this a thousand lifetimes before. But even then, the golden thread was warped. Something in the signal was always off. The frequency didn’t sync. And in your story, I was always the villain. Fine. I wore that crown. Better the villain than the fool.
Because it wasn’t me. It was always you, tripping over the same stones, walking into the same walls. Everywhere you went, there you were. The mask could last a few hours, maybe a couple days, but it always fell. And the trouble came. It always came.
You’d vanish before you could be truly seen. Before anyone could pull back the curtain. But we knew. We all knew the stories. The closed doors, the whispered truths, the confessions said into one set of ears but heard by many. The spilled tea and broken promises.
And still—someone calls you friend.
If they only knew.
But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the truth has never been the point. Maybe some people are meant to drift, to flicker, to haunt.
You, the drifter—
half soul, half shadow.
Never home.
Never gone.
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