Deep inside me,
a part whispers truths
I can't ignore.
I can’t build my happiness
on the broken dreams
of my seven-year-old self,
with eyes wide open,
arms reaching for justice
that’s eluded him like fog,
shifting and fading
just out of reach.

THOSE hands—
the ones I can’t forget,
the ones that took more
than a moment of childhood,
they haunt me.
I come back to them, again and again,
sharp and vivid,
the memories that cling
like cracked paint on a wall—
every corner framed in hurt.

I want to cast them away,
to lay them down forever,
but the memories I want to keep,
the soft laughter,
the warmth of summer afternoons,
it all feels distant now—
a postcard from a vanished time.
© Jaspertheghost