Writetober 2025, Coven of the Quill, Day 11: Regret.

 The Glass does not show me. 

It shows the light of my life left scattered,  

energy of a word unsaid. 

It is an anti-chamber, smelling of sea-salt 

And the distant, yet metallic taste of certainty.

He stands there, the other. 

And the world he inhabits has a higher frequency. The air around him itself vibrates with completion. 

He is holding a thing—is it a key? A simple, Un-latched truth? 

My own hand is heavy, tethered to the- 

floor, dust, time, gravity

of my past decisions. 

The mirror is not a window, but a slow, 

Crushing calculation of all the zero-sums I thought were saving me.

I see a staircase I never climbed

That spirals into colors I once recalled,

the slick velvet of the box that should’ve meant forever 

the joyous white of bells left untolled

the rusty maroon of the place I could’ve called home.

the quiet, confident shade of belonging

My melancholy is merely the recognition

Of the knowledge that a ghost can be more real 

Than the flesh that stands in the mirror before it

written by Zoe