By the lantern's glow

A scuffed mirror in the lighthouse’s hollow chest,
I reflect what the sea spits back.
Salt-slick hands glide over railings,
wood splintered by years of screams
the tide swallowed whole.

The lantern's hum pulses through me,
a second heartbeat,
while the wind lashes with briny whips,
tattooing stories I never asked to carry
onto my brittle frame.

She stands in me, shadow-sharp—
the self I locked in the lantern’s glow.
Her voice scrapes the corners of my silence:
"Who are you,
if not the keeper of ghosts?"

I taste the fog—sour milk on my tongue—
and chew on its weight.
Beneath my boots, the floor swells
with secrets kept too long.

Her fingers—seaweed-slick—
curl around my throat,
soft, then pressing,
until the waves inside my chest crash:
I am her echo,
and she is my tide.

The light breaks,
not clean, but jagged—
fractured shards of me
scattered across the night.