My jaw aches with unsaid things,
with voices I swallowed—
salt and steel.

Along the shore, debris keeps arriving,
and I stitch the day back together
with threadbare patience,
a thin seam at the edges of myself.

The sea slathers everything in truth—
salty tides licking old wounds clean,
calling up the beasts that hide in the dark
behind my ribs.

I open the vault of memory,
and there it is:
a silver glint,
a small mercy,
a quiet tilt toward dawn.

— Maggie
The Afterlove Voice 💫