Mistook for Me

I wore a smile I did not earn,

A lantern lit to never burn.

Spoke in echoes, laughed in lies,

Built my truth on alibis.

I danced with ghosts I once denied,

Fed them grief I meant to hide.

Their silence grew beneath my skin—

A cage of calm I kept within.

I drank from wells that held no rain,

Called it strength, and named it pain.

But thirst, once cloaked in clever prose,

Still lingers where no mercy grows.

I climbed a hill of hollow praise,

Shouting through a smoky haze.

The wind replied with someone else,

A voice that sounded like myself.

Now twilight pools behind my eyes,

Heavy with unspoken ties.

I sit where shadows start to bend—

Half a question. Not the end.