We were not born for softness,
We were built of breach and burn.

But I have seen them look at each other
Like the universe still turns.

I have watched her bleed on stars
And laugh with a mouth full of war.

I have watched him try not to need her,
And fail, a little more.

We are stitched together by secrets,
And spite, and what we lack.

We are the dead who won’t lie down—
And ghosts who crawl back.

🥃 Aftertaste – a poem

by Shade (unfortunately)

I drank her memory in a glass too wide
and called it healing.
Said: “This time, I won’t flinch.”
Then flinched anyway.

The burn was expected.
The honesty wasn’t.

I named the bottle Retcon
because “Mistake”
felt too fragile
and “Hope” would’ve shattered.

It tasted like the first time I said “I’m fine”
and meant
I’m surviving out of spite.
It tasted like
what I would’ve told her
if I’d been braver
or drunker
or bleeding slower.

The Fold didn’t blink.
It never does.
But the mirror cracked
right down the part of me
that still wanted to be forgiven.

I poured the last mouthful on the floor.
Not as an offering.
Just so I wouldn’t drink it again.

---

[Note scribbled in the margin later, likely by Spook:]
You could’ve just said you missed her, idiot.