Lil Rabbits Echoes

My first home began soft. Tan carpet under my feet, the kind that held warmth and made every step feel familiar. The living room was everything a home should be — safe, loving, whole — a place where laughter didn’t echo, it settled gently, like dust in sunlight. The kitchen was white tile and brightness, never a room for anger, never a place where voices rose. It was where Mom made games out of cleaning because her body couldn’t keep up, and where I learned that love sometimes looks like trying anyway. My bedroom was just a room, but their room was sanctuary. Every night I slipped between them, safe instantly, held by the quiet rhythm of their breathing and the hum of the AC that never failed us. They always knew I was there. They always let me stay. The house smelled like her perfume, his cologne, and the faint sweetness of Florida humidity that clung to everything. It smelled like childhood — the kind you don’t realize you’re losing until it’s gone. The yard was joy. Pure, uncomplica...

I’m not asking for a second chance.   I’m not asking for forgiveness.   I’m not even asking for love.   I just want one more night   where your voice   is the last thing I hear   before sleep takes me.   One more moment   where your hands   remember my name.   One more breath   where missing you   doesn’t feel like a punishment.   -𝕃ℝ 🖤

It’s ridiculous, really—   how the smallest things   carry your fingerprints.   A song in a store.   A phrase someone says.   A color I wasn’t even looking at.   It all circles back to you.   Like the world is conspiring   to keep your memory alive   even when I’m trying to let it rest.   I didn’t know missing someone   could feel like being haunted   by things that never meant to hurt me.   -𝕃ℝ 🖤

I don’t fear failing one person— I fear failing everyone. Every stranger who crosses my path, every soul I brush against for a moment and never see again. I know what pain looks like before it speaks. I recognize it in eyes that linger too long, in jokes told a little too loudly, in silences that beg not to be noticed. I’ve lived there. I remember the weight. So I try to be careful with people. Gentle. Soft-spoken with their wounds. I measure my words like they’re medicine, afraid the wrong dose might push someone deeper into a place I barely escaped. My fear isn’t disappointment— it’s becoming a reason someone goes home and feels emptier. It’s being the last straw on a back already breaking. I don’t want to be another lesson, another regret, another quiet “I should’ve known better.” I don’t want anyone to remember me as a source of hurt. So I smile when I’m exhausted. I listen when I’m empty. I give even when my hands shake from being open too long. If I can absorb the sadness, maybe ...

It doesn’t drift—it hunts.   Down the spine of the Blue Ridge it comes,   a pale procession of wrath and memory,   dragging the names of the wronged in its lungs.   It wears no crown, but it rules.   Ash trees bow. Ravens scatter.   The fog is no weather—it’s a curse,   a reckoning stitched in mountain matter.   It remembers every betrayal,   every oath broken beneath cedar shade,   and it comes not to mourn, but to balance—   to collect what the liars never paid.   Rowan flares red in warning,   the salt bride rises from the creek,   and the fog, thick with ancestral fury,   wraps the guilty in silence they cannot speak.   It is Floki’s breath, Mary’s blade,   Odin’s eye in the mist’s descent—   a ledger of blood and bone and vow,   and it will not leave until it’s spent.   So let it come....

I am a cannibal saint.   I eat my own heart   to feed the people   who say you’re so strong.   I carve off a piece   of my softness   every time you need   proof I’m human.   I serve it on a plate.   I watch you chew.   I call it connection.   I call it *I’m glad   you’re eating*.   No one asks   what I’m living on   now that the ribs   are showing.   No one asks   why my miracles   taste like starvation.   Sainthood is just   self-consumption   with good lighting.   And I am   very, very   holy.   -𝕃ℝ 🖤

When I die you can find me   in the way the sunrise   keeps choosing the world—   even after the longest night   it’s ever known.      I won’t be an ending.   I’ll be the first light   that hits the ridgeline,   warm on the stones   I used to walk barefoot.   I’ll be the hush   before the day forgives itself   and starts again.      Find me in the sunflowers.   Not the ones that bowed—   the ones that learned   how to stand back up.   I’ll be in every stubborn stalk   that split concrete   just to see the sky.   I’ll be the gold   you thought the dark   had stolen for good.      The ravens will still come.   But they won’t be mourning.   They’ll be messengers—   black wings bright with dawn, ...

Home is the most disputed territory in any language.   For some, it’s four walls and a deed.   A zip code. A mortgage.   For others, it’s a person whose arms   were the only architecture that didn’t collapse.   Men are told home is what they provide.   Women are told home is what they become.   No one asks the child who learned to pack   a suitcase before they learned to spell safe.   For the displaced, home is a tense, not a place.   It’s where I was or where I might be.   Never where I am.   For the betrayed, home is a crime scene   with the furniture still in it.   So don’t ask me where I’m from.   Ask me what I flinch at.   Ask me what smell makes my jaw unclench.   Ask me whose absence feels like eviction.   Because home isn’t a building.   It’s the place where your nervous system   st...

Who taught you   that softness   was a debt?   That every time   you opened   your hands   the world   sent an invoice—   *payment due   in blood,   in ruin,   in the currency   of your own   breaking*.   So you learned   to calcify.   To turn   your heart   into a fist   before anyone   could hold it   wrong.   But at night   the fist   aches.   It remembers   being a palm.   It remembers   the shape   of tenderness   like a language   you were fluent in   before the war.   And gods,   it hurts   to unclench.   It hurts   to admit   you still want   to be touched   without flinching. ...

Who holds the ghosts   accountable   for the rooms   they refuse   to leave?   They don’t pay rent.   They don’t do dishes.   They just stand   in the hallway   at 2am   wearing the face   of every word   you never   got to say.   Who tells them   you’re trespassing   when they built   the house   from your   unfinished sentences?   Maybe haunting   isn’t malice.   Maybe it’s grief   with nowhere   to file   the paperwork.   So I don’t exorcise.   I set out   an extra chair.   I pour   two cups.   If they’re staying,   they’re going   to witness   me living.   -𝕃ℝ 🖤 

Who forgives God   for the days He doesn’t   answer?   Who absolves the Almighty   when the child cries   and the room stays empty?   Does He look in the mirror   and see the cracks   in His own omniscience,   the nights He whispered   I don’t know   into the void   and the void   whispered back?   Maybe divinity   is just the heaviest   kind of guilt—   to have the power   and still   choose to watch.   Maybe God’s hell   is knowing   every name   He couldn’t save.   So who forgives Him?   Maybe no one.   Maybe that’s why   He made us—   not to worship,   but to teach Him   how to live   with blood on His hands   and still   plant gardens.  -𝕃ℝ 🖤 

We are born already in debt to time. The first breath is a loan   with interest compounded in regrets.   No apple, no serpent.  Just the bare fact   that to be conscious is to be in arrears.   Every joy is borrowed against the grave.   Every I love you is a promissory note   written in ink that fades.   Salvation isn’t forgiveness.   It’s the moment you stop checking the balance   and accept that you will die bankrupt   of all the things you meant to say.   -𝕃ℝ 🖤  

I used to think stars were holes in the floor of heaven.   Now I know they’re exit wounds.   Light takes years to reach us   from things already dead.   Same as apologies.   Same as “I miss you.”   By the time it gets here,   the thing that sent it is gone.   We’re all just looking at ghosts   and calling it a night sky.   -𝕃ℝ 🖤

The truth is, I no longer fear death. Death has always seemed remarkably honest. It is life that terrifies me. Life— with its unfinished sentences, its borrowed happiness, its talent for teaching attachment immediately before removal. Death only takes you once. Life– has a far more creative imagination. -𝕃ℝ 🖤

Perhaps the purpose of life was never happiness. Happiness is too fragile. Too dependent on weather, timing, luck. Maybe the purpose was simply witness. To stand briefly in existence and say: I was here. I saw the moon hanging over empty highways. I heard laughter erupt from broken people. I loved things I could not keep. I suffered. I survived. And when darkness finally arrives, to leave behind evidence that consciousness once bloomed here, however briefly. -𝕃ℝ