What Was Sleeping Should Have Stayed Asleep

They mistook my silence for a shallow grave,
never wondering
what kind of thing chooses not to climb out.

So they dug.

With polished smiles, sharpened whispers,
and hands that called themselves holy,
they carved at flesh
hoping to find fear beneath it.

Instead—

they found a door.

Now half my face remembers the man
who begged for peace,
while the other half remembers
what answered his prayers too late.

Look carefully.

The eye that still lives
has not forgotten mercy.

The hollow socket beside it
has forgotten everything.

There was once a heartbeat
that searched every room for love,
a soul willing to bleed
just to prove humanity still existed.

You buried him
one betrayal at a time.

Stone after stone.

Lie after lie.

Until compassion suffocated
beneath the weight of your hands.

Now you ask
why my reflection no longer resembles yours.

Because the man you knew
became fertilizer
for something older.

Something patient.

Something that understood
the difference between forgiveness
and permission.

The skull is not death.

It is the receipt.

Every fracture etched into the bone
is a promise remembered.
Every empty socket
is a place where innocence once watched the world
and believed it beautiful.

You should have left him sleeping.

You should have walked away
while there was still warmth beneath the skin.

Instead,
you pounded upon the coffin
day after day,
year after year,
certain that nothing answered
from the dark.

Until one day...

the knocking stopped.

And from the silence
came footsteps.

Not hurried.

Not angry.

Certain.

The living half still breathes.

The other half
has already attended your funeral
a thousand times
inside the chambers of memory.

So if the darkness in these eyes
makes your spirit tremble,

understand—

it was never born this way.

It learned your name
before it learned its own.

And what was sleeping...

should have stayed asleep.