I have nothing left to offer.

A world that promised colour

taught me only the language of grey.

A place that spoke of belonging

forgot my name

the moment I arrived.

Even this body,

this borrowed flesh,

has become another room

I no longer recognise.

I was unfinished,

searching for solace

in the embrace of a broken society.

It did not complete me.

It simply broke

what little remained.

---

Breathe, Joel...

Breathe.

Begin again.

Perhaps this time

the pieces will remember

where they once belonged.

The hands that promised to build me

left fingerprints shaped like fractures.

They demanded excellence,

rewarded obedience,

and mistook silence

for peace.

I stood where everyone stood,

yet somehow

I was always outside the circle.

An outcast,

not by choice,

but by design.

---

They called me

a lone wolf.

What a convenient name

for something

they first abandoned.

No one remembers

the frightened pup

driven into the wilderness.

No one remembers

how long hunger

can sound like prayer.

They only hear the howl,

never the silence

that gave birth to it.

---

Now you look upon me

with frightened eyes

and call me a monster.

Tell me...

Who carved these edges?

Who taught my heart

to beat with caution

instead of wonder?

Who buried hope

so deep

that even light

forgot the way?

You did.

The same hands

that pushed me away

now tremble

because I survived.

---

Do not fear

the wolf.

Fear the village

that keeps making them.

For monsters

are rarely born.

They are assembled,

piece by piece,

by the people

who refuse

to see themselves

in the mirror.