The Walls I Raise

Since you would not quiet your restless hands,
since silence was never enough for your hunger,
now you will witness my magic—

not lightning,
not curses,
not the childish fantasy of revenge,

but the oldest spell ever spoken:

I no longer need you.

Pray the echoes of your own choices
are gentle when they find you,
for I will not be there
to soften their landing.

You spend your days
asking where I am,
wondering what I am building,
imagining I still orbit
the gravity of your opinions.

Meanwhile—

I have become a kingdom
that no longer recognizes your maps.

There is only one life
I am responsible for now:
my own.

Every sunrise,
another stone in the fortress.
Every scar,
another gate forged shut.
Every betrayal,
mortar between the bricks.

You call it isolation.

I call it architecture.

The rats that once gnawed
at the foundations of my peace
scratch now at walls
their teeth cannot remember climbing.

They pace.
They chatter.
They invent stories
to convince themselves
the door is still unlocked.

It is not.

If chasing my shadow
has become your purpose,
understand this:

you are exhausting yourself
running after someone
who has already walked beyond reach.

I do not carry hatred.

Hatred is another leash.

I carry distance—
cold,
measured,
absolute.

My magic was never
the destruction of others.

It was surviving them
long enough
to become untouchable.

So keep searching.

Keep whispering my name
into rooms
where I no longer live.

The only soul
I am rebuilding now
is my own.

And every stone I lay
is another promise

that nothing crawling from my past
will ever scale these walls again.