Guide for Vanishing

Begin with a quiet step.

The page must not hear you.

Open a book—not any book,

but her book.

The one left ajar,

spine cracked like a whisper

waiting to be answered.

Let the dust settle on your shoulders.

Let it name you forgotten.

When the shadows of the shelves lean in,

do not flinch.

They remember before you do.

She will come,

the lady in ink and silence.

She will not speak.

She will point

to a passage

where a door once breathed

in the back of your mind.

Walk through.

If the land is scorched,

keep walking.

If the air hums with unspoken names,

answer none.

Leave no footprints.

Fold your shadow neatly

behind a cracked volume

titled How to Be Gone.

When you reach the memory tree,

do not pick the fruit.

Only read the carvings.

You will find your name

among the vanished,

shaped by hands

that never trembled.

If you must cry,

let it be soundless.

The leaves are listening.

Breathe in the library.

Let the smell of old stories

coat your lungs.

Cough if you must,

but quietly.

The last rule:

Leave behind a book.

Write nothing inside.

But fold one page,

the one where the girl vanishes

and no one looks for her

because they already know—

She is home.

Among the spines.

In the hush.

In the dust.

In the room that reads you back.