The Shoes He Never Outgrew

They found his shoes under the bed,

still small, still neat.

Laces tied by a mother’s hand —

who used to hum him to sleep.

He was eight.

Too old for lullabies,

too young to fight the sky.

But hunger came before his ninth birthday

and stayed longer than his name.

In the quiet corners of a forgotten room,

the wallpaper peeled like old skin —

and every crack whispered:

He was here.

Once.

There was no war,

no bomb,

no siren.

Only silence

so heavy it crushed his ribs

before the world even remembered his story.

The neighbors said,

"She was always a quiet mother."

They didn’t see

how loud her eyes screamed

when he asked for bread

and she had none.

She fed him bedtime tales

on nights their plates were bare.

And when he slept,

she wept —

the kind of weeping that makes God look away.

He never outgrew his shoes.

But his absence filled the house like wildfire.

His empty chair became a monument.

And his laughter —

a ghost that knocked gently on every closed door.

No one buried him with flowers.

Just a schoolbag with frayed zippers.

A drawing of a sun.

And a note that said:

“I won’t ask for dinner tonight."

Thank you for reading ❤️💜❤️💜❤️