Sometimes I see her looking back at me, in the mirror, in a photograph I find tucked in a drawer, a ghost of a girl, all light and open and gone and I think did that person ever even exist or did I dream her up, some kind of cruel joke I play on myself to remind me how far I've fallen, how much the world has stolen from me and it's not even the big things, the dreams, the trips, the career, it's the small things, the quiet mornings, the book I used to read, the way I used to hum in the shower, the way my own laughter used to sound, God, that sound I can't even recall it anymore, I'm just a shadow now, a silhouette tending to a flame that won't stay lit, and the hum, always the hum, it drowns everything out EVERYTHING.