When you look

I lit a candle just to see the dark But the dark learned my name and answered back My thoughts move different when I stare too long Like they know they’re wrong for being caught I touched my fear and it changed its shape It learned my language, wore my face Now every feeling I try to hold Turns into something I don’t control I thought I was the watcher Standing outside the flame But the moment I noticed it It stopped being the same When you look, it bleeds When you see, it breathes Every ghost I name out loud Starts looking back at me I tried to stay unseen But I became the screen And everything I tried to know Starts rewriting me I called it sadness, it grew teeth I called it love, it learned to leave I wrote my life in careful lines But it moved when I blinked my eyes Now even silence feels alive Like it’s waiting for me to decide If it’s real or just a role My attention sold my soul I thought I was the witness Detached and cold and clean But observation is a knife That carves what it means When you look, it bleeds When you see, it breathes Every truth I try to hold Turns into a dream I tried to stay unseen But I became the screen And everything I tried to know Starts rewriting me Am I the mind or the mirror? Or just the space between? Every time I try to name it It stops being what I mean If awareness is a wound Then I never stop the bleed I am both the eye that watches And the thing it makes believe When you look, it bleeds When you see, it breathes There is no untouched world No hidden reality I tried to stay unseen But I became the screen And everything I tried to know Is now a part of me