Silent dark

shadows ”When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.” —Lauren Eden, The Lioness Awakens i was raised by the dark— mother taught me to swallow the unsaid. my tongue split on edges, learned to sip honey from blades. shadows don’t starve. they chew the unspoken: hiss of struck matches, salt of a wound, a fist clenching grief like a prayer. i wear my scars as cutlery. each night, i set the table with my father’s silence, my mother’s marrowless bones. i eat what the light abandons. i drink what it fears.