The Necklace

The lady across the seat from me on the train was wearing what i thought was the exact the same Egyptian necklace my mom used to and so i asked "is your name Candace?"

“It is?!?!” She answered with a look that was out of place,“have we met?” and the conversation carried on for only another minute.

i didn’t notice at first but then the light hit it just right and as the

Sunlight takes a glance off a chain, a flicker of gold, the hieroglyphs spell your name, a story that was already told. The scent of patchouli that smells like warmth, a touch so light that it jarred memories loose that were buried deep and out of sight.

The buried past and a deep tremor in my soul, will i carry this until i'm old? A necklace gleams and it should be called a mocking key, to the woman whom she could’ve been.

Lullabies forgotten and The Sound of Music is now the sound of silence that Julie Andrews can’t help go down. Even with a spoonful of sugar.

Echoes of laughter, a gentle hand on my shoulder but no scratch on my back. A puzzle with missing pieces, a picture incomplete, but with this golden key, a sense of something ever sweet.

The necklace gleams like a portal to the past unfurled, revealing glimpses of a woman, of a mother, of a previous world.

Were you always this beautiful, this strong, this mighty? The once forgotten returns and washes over me like I’m bathing in warm sunlight.

Each hieroglyph is just a whisper of the woman you were, the weight of the necklace on a strangers neck in an even stranger place and a connection to you, to a love i feared time had erased.

Just be kind.

In the silent hours, behind a smile,

beneath calm eyes,

Wages a war that lies just outside of your view.

A tempest swirls, though these faces are placid,

The Mind’s eye is filled with reluctant storms —

fierce, and erratic and Possibly

fiercely erratic.

Whispering shadows that speak of strain,

echoes trapped inside my cranial plains.

Mornings are draped in another sweet façade,

while the Nights are unraveling, quietly flawed.

Being the “bigger person” sometimes masks the scream inside,

where fears shine a light so bright

doubts have nowhere to hide.

Unseen battles fought atop silent graves,

In these twisted sanctums my soul is a slave and i can hear

The Heartbeat is starting to stutter

courage, fear.

Chaos looks pretty covered in veneers.

Who hears the unspoken pleadings or the silent cry,

Behind the laughter, maybe you can hear it in the sigh?

Not every fight is seen or heard and

within the mind every line is a blur and

The Quiet Wars go unshared and left to endure.

Behind locked doors the mind conjures up

fragmented selves and

although some pieces get lost,

The Smiles and their victories are piled high

and lie right behind the soft smile.

Please, even if you just try, try to be kind.

i hope you never see

Perfectly good mirror but a cracked reflection. 

An image of an already distorted perception. 

This... is me? 

Shrunken, lost in the vastness.

Another of the same face. Is this me?

Another voice swallowed by the noise.

Doubt spills its whispers. "Not enough," it taunts me and haunts my days. 

A truth echoing in the hollowness within.

Plain and old and a plane old beige life. 

Fading embers in a vibrant world.

Yearning for a spark or something to ignite the blues or better yet change the hues all together.

Shadows. i’m a lot safer there. i feel like anyways. Unseen and unheard, unknown.

The light terrifies me sometimes. The secret truth it might reveal...

Special? A whisper lost on the wind.

Self-esteem, a love for me? A locked chest, the key in sight and forever out of reach.

A fragile shell. Fear at its purest core. A heart on constant guard.

See me? as in myself. The me i hide. The one i fight with all my might...

My biggest fear is that you, see me as i do.