I recognized his eyes

the moment he stepped through the door,

a flicker of yesterday’s nightmare,

wearing the same skin,

the same tired grin.

I froze,

like my breath forgot the next step

in this cold choreography.

I couldn’t do this.

Not now. Not here.

Not when I’m already drowning

in the same room as him,

where the air feels like someone else’s.

My chest tightens in sync with my thoughts

and I feel everything I should’ve buried

crawl back up my throat,

thick like shame.

He never learned to knock,

always barging into my head

like it’s his.

But I see his eyes—

the ones that held me down once,

pinned me like a secret

to be kept in a box.

I taste metal,

like I bit down on my own anger,

afraid to spill.

He doesn’t see me freeze,

he doesn’t even look,

and isn’t that what burns the most?

Like, I don’t exist

unless I’m breaking apart,

unless I’m useful

to someone else's story.

We’ve been here before,

this moment of not-quite-speaking.

The silence is thick with everything we never said,

and now it's too late

because the weight of his eyes

is pulling me back

to nights I still haven’t named.

His hands never leave my mind—

they linger,

just like his laugh,

how it used to peel the skin from my bones

without touching me at all.

He walks past like nothing happened,

like everything happened,

like we both didn’t bleed out in the same room

and call it “just a bad day.”

Like I didn’t spend hours

scrubbing myself raw,

trying to wash off the parts of him

that stuck to me.

I couldn’t do this.

Not now.

Not with all the noise in my head

screaming about what I could’ve been,

who I should’ve been,

if he hadn’t stepped into my life

and ruined the sound of my own name.

But here he is,

the boy with the monster’s eyes,

and suddenly I’m sixteen again,

clinging to walls

I was never supposed to touch.

And all I want is to be

anywhere but here,

anyone but me.