formal mulch
“You’re My Accomplice” (Reflection)
There’s a kind of grief that doesn’t roar — it lingers.
You can’t quite name what you’ve lost,
just that something once warm has gone quiet.
A face, a feeling, a maybe.
You tell yourself you’re fine —
that love was a passing thing,
that you don’t need it,
that you’ve built yourself from sharper edges now.
But then a lyric hits,
or the wind shifts,
and suddenly the ghost of that softness
is right there beside you again.
You start to wonder:
was it them you missed,
or the way you felt when they were near?
Maybe both.
Maybe neither.
Maybe what hurts most
is the reminder that you can still feel.
That under all the armor and ink and half-laughed scars,
your heart still hums when the music hits right.
So you let it ache.
You let it pass.
You learn to live in the in-between —
between numbness and need,
between the wound and whatever grows next.
And when you finally look up,
you realize you’re still here.
Still breathing.
Still human enough to want connection,
and brave enough to walk toward it again.
That’s not weakness.
That’s proof you survived.
— We Are the Lantern Keepers
misty wasp
waxen ice