The Absence of Myself

I have lost myself.
I am not who I was.
I am not who I dreamed of becoming.

Years.
Days.
Nights.
Months.
Hours.
Their names fade into one another.
A haze, a hum, a sameness.

The life I imagined is unrecognizable,
Wrapped by fear,
Bruised by betrayal,
Filled with lies.

Time, the great illusion,
Has not healed.
It has stretched the pain thin and wide.
It has not let me forget.
It has taught me to pretend.

My heart,
Not mended, but broken again and again,
Until it is a language I no longer speak.

Who broke it?
Was it you?
Was it me?
Was it the void between us?
I cannot remember.

I am no longer myself.
I am no longer the person I wished to become.
I am a stranger to my own reflection.

And yet,
The longing remains,
A faint pulse beneath the skin.
The sadness has not gone.
The darkness still breathes.

It sits here,
Beside me,
Inside me,
A quiet companion.
It never left.

I whisper to the absence,
But it does not answer.
I ask the void for meaning,
But it remains silent.

Who am I now?
Not what was,
Not what could have been.
Only what is—
A shadow of something once alive.