A Ghost in the Rain

Rain bleeds from dark, ominous skies,
Whispers secrets to the cobblestones,
The scent of petrichor,
Laced with the breath of passing bodies,
Hugs me like a ghost's embrace.

My voice, when I finally wrestle it free,
trembles, spills from my chest,
carrying my heart like an offering.
But it is drowned in the hum of the crowd,
vanished,
like a single drop swallowed by an ocean,
A red flag drowned in the parade of white.

Am I a ghost?
A phantom so thin,
My presence dissolves in the air?
Perhaps I am—
A presence only I can prove.

Everything fits the puzzle,
Yet I am the misplaced piece—
Breaking my edges just to fit the game.
Clipping my wings till they forget the sky,
just to earn a smile.

My heart cracks in silence,
under the weight of pretending.
I can hear the muffled cries
of my younger self,
Behind the fort I built,
to keep her safe.

Yet, I ache for a place,
Where my voice is caught and kept,
Waiting for a gaze to pierce the veil,
To look for the depth in my silence.

But perhaps—
I am not the one fading.
Perhaps it’s the world,
that has thinned into spectres,
faces with painted eyes,
Voices without weight.

— bruhty