She died in winter.
Gray sky, bone-cold air,
a corpse in a hospice bed that finally shut up.
And I didn’t cry.
Not a single tear, not a whimper,
not the shaky breath of a daughter
who lost her mother—
because I never had one.
I had a warden, a dictator,
a queen of cigarettes and venom,
a goddamn ghost haunting my reflection.
“You’ll never be good enough, you’ll never be whole.”
A fist in a velvet glove,
a slap in the face dressed up as “love.”
But she’s gone now.
Ashes in a box in the closet.
Gone, like the bruises that faded,
gone, like the whispers I swallowed,
gone, like the guilt she tried to tattoo on my ribs.
And I’m still here.
Still breathing, still standing,
still wearing my name like armor,
still building a life with my bare fucking hands.
No thanks to her.
So, no, I don’t grieve.
I don’t light candles.
I don’t whisper her name like a prayer.
I take one deep breath,
fill my lungs with air she can’t steal,
and exhale—
because for the first time in my life,
I am free.
