The Midnight Scribe Echoes of the Forgotten

They will tell you that I am a man made entirely of appetite. They will count the fingerprints, the empty glasses, the names I forgot before sunrise. They will mistake my hunger for confidence.

They do not know that every kiss was a question. Every body a locked door I hoped would finally open. They call me reckless. As if I wasn’t just another boy learning how to survive inside a heart that had forgotten what home felt like. I have mastered the language of wanting—

the smile that says

come closer, the laugh that says

don’t look too deeply, the touch that whispers

leave before I do. Because if you stay,

you’ll hear the silence beneath my skin.

You’ll find that desire

was never the disease. Loneliness was.

And every night I mistake one

for the other. If you ever meet me

at two in the morning, don’t ask

how many people have loved me.

Ask instead how many

have remained after discovering

that I was never searching for another body—

only a place where my heart

could finally stop starving.