I’ve scraped the walls bare,
stripped them of kindness—
no wisdom pools in the cracks,
no warmth lingers in the peeling paint.

Hugs crumble like ancient relics;
smiles splinter into brittle crescents,
breaking beneath the weight of truth.

This life—if we dare call it that—
is a slow, aching exhale of absence,
a fistful of brittle threads
pulled too tight, fraying at the edges.

Hopes bruise like overripe fruit,
spilling their sweetness into silence.
Limitations crust over,
hard and unyielding as frost.

Love—if that’s the name for it—
bleeds through the seams,
a threadbare ghost
draped over the jagged bones of need.

Perfection snarls from the mirror,
its mouth full of dust and rot,
a reflection too sharp to hold.

There was never a beginning,
just a faint hum in the dark—
the soft echo of hands
reaching, grasping,
closing on nothing.

Lucija Lotus Mlinarič