
I have walked in your footsteps for long enough to know what happens next,
I have followed you down the darkest paths, I have seen you failing life’s tests.
With your broad back turned to me, you do not even notice my frozen breaths,
You keep moving on quickly while I observe and place my unlucky bets.
I have watched you break promises like deadly storms break the driest branches.
I hear they fear you, so I guess I am lucky to have never faced your avalanches.
They call me the lost child, they even wonder if I have taken after you,
And my brazen silence frightens them more than the latest twisted truth.
I have lingered over you like cheap perfume for at least a few decades now,
I have been the only face you truly dread to notice in the greyest crowd.
But with your back still turned towards me, you have built a sense of false safety.
You think I am disappearing like a mirage,
Yet somehow my ghost feels closer to you lately.
-Jackie




