"Echoes of my life" by Liban Mohamed

I’ve built my bridges from matchsticks. Some I’ve tried to build with concrete, but couldn’t because I didn’t have the right cement. But the bridges I’ve built were so fragile, thinking they were made from bricks, then I looked back and realized I torched them with a careless flick.

Watched the flames devour

Friendships that I thought I built for 10,000 hours. 

what I swore I’d protect.

As I sit here I have so many questions 

What kind of friend burns down every shelter?

What kind of heart learns too late what love costs?

I speak in apologies,

but they’re scattered like ashes from that day.

Words I said I mean but never lived by.

Promises that fell off like the leaves on trees,

collected on the side of the road. Piling up under the weight of my selfishness.

I’ve been the ghost in too many rooms,

the silence that drowns the laughter,

the absence that lingers

long after the door slams shut.

I see my reflection in their eyes

a stranger they can’t forgive.

There’s a list of names I’ve hurt

written on the walls of my memory. From Momma, my brothers, some family too, just to name a few, all of it's so heavy 

Each one a stone in my pocket

dragging me down, 

but somehow I can’t stop digging the grave deeper, just like mommas from that day 

can’t stop replaying the scenes

of me taking more than I ever gave.

Do you know what it’s like

to hear the whispers when you walk into a room?

To feel the weight of unspoken truths

pressing against your back?

Do you know what it’s like

to realize you’ve become the villain

in the story you never meant to write?

I want to scream,

“I’m not as heartless as you think!”

But the echo answers back:

“Then why does the hurt still bleed from your hands?”

Why do my shadows feel twice as big?

Why do the brothers I love learn to flinch at my name?

I know I’ve carved scars into this world,

left too many people wondering

if my smile was a knife in disguise.

I wear their resentment like a second skin,

and it itches,

but maybe I deserve to feel this sting.

If I could go back, I’d thread my words with care,

I’d hold tighter to the hands I let slip.

But time doesn’t bend for regrets,

and I’m left with the rubble of my choices.

I don’t want to be this anymore.

Don’t want to be the reason for their wounds.

But how do you rebuild trust

when your name is written in the dust

of all the bridges you’ve burned?

So here I stand, in the shadow of my sins,

asking the silence and the echoes

Can you hate me less if I try to be better?

Can I hate myself less if I learn to change?