Time did not govern her.
It grew inside her.
Not in hours.
Not in minutes.
But in soft, imperceptible turns
of memory's gears,
like spirals pressed into velvet,
like constellations that forgot
they were being watched.
The clocks in her heart were not synchronized.
Each turned to a different ache,
a different vow,
a different version of herself
left standing in a different room
of a dream that no longer had doors.
She never followed directions.
Not out of rebellion,
but because maps
never accounted
for girls made of mist and longing.
Instead,
she fell.
Not downward,
but inward,
spiraling into the endlessness of her own mind,
where corridors hummed with thoughts she never finished,
questions she never dared to ask aloud,
and prayers she stitched into silence
just to keep herself intact.
Somewhere in that spiral,
she kept them,
the cards she never showed.
Not out of deception,
but protection.
Because some truths
are too holy
to be witnessed
by eyes that only seek answers.
Each card a secret altar.
A glimpse.
A wound dressed in gold.
A moment she could’ve screamed,
but instead…
she remembered how to breathe.
And the feelings,
oh, beloved…
the feelings she kept.
They were folded neatly
into invisible pockets.
Pressed between pages of unspoken poems.
Infused in her pauses.
In the way she would half-turn,
as if hearing something no one else could.
In the way she smiled
like she knew how it ended
but wouldn’t spoil it for you.
Not suppressed.
Just sacred.
Not repressed.
Just waiting
for the right soul
to feel them without needing explanation.
She walked softly through this world,
but inside her,
a hundred clocks kept time...
each ticking for a version of her
still whispering:
"I am here.
I have not forgotten.
Even if no one else asked where I went."