Letters I Burned

The firelight dances on the floor
Like ghosts I tried to hide before
Your name still inked in every line
Flickers like it's still mine
I kept them locked behind my spine
Folded flat, unsigned
But silence has a way of speaking
When you're the one left keeping

I never found the strength to send
The truth I wrote with shaking hands

These are the letters I burned
Each one a truth I never learned
Ash in the air, guilt on my skin
Trying to cleanse what never begins
I watched them curl, I watched them fade
But the words, they always stayed
These are the letters I burned
And the lessons I never returned

Your birthday card from '95
Still smelled like hope and ocean tide
I almost wrote you back last year
But couldn't bear the mirror
So I lit the match and held it close
Watched the flames erase the ghosts
But even fire can't unwrite
What lives inside at night

I whispered things I meant to say
But ash can't carry them away

These are the letters I burned
Each one a truth I never learned
Ash in the air, guilt on my skin
Trying to cleanse what never begins
I watched them curl, I watched them fade
But the words, they always stayed
These are the letters I burned
And the silence I never unlearned

If words could bring you back to me
I'd write them in eternity
But some things you can't reclaim
Once they're swallowed by the flame

These are the letters I burned
The pieces of love I never returned
I held them close, then let them die
But they still haunt my lullaby
The smoke may rise, the night may fall
But I still hear them through it all
These are the letters I burned
Still reading me in every turn