# // eidolon ii //

By [Knepala](https://paragraph.com/@knepala) · 2025-04-02

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they moved like tide around a sinking stone  
with cruelty so precise it left no trace  
and eyes that never blinked long enough  
to see themselves

they never needed proof  
—just a whisper  
a pause  
a silence they could shape into guilt

getting chased isn’t always running  
sometimes it’s standing still  
while the walls close in  
and the air forgets how to move

some of them smiled like saints in the daylight  
clean hands, curated words, eyes made for witnesses  
but I saw the shift—subtle, exact  
the way their posture softened only when someone was watching

they didn’t need claws  
they had applause  
and the silence of rooms that swallowed my name

**I wore their projections like a borrowed skin  
tight, wrong, stinking of everything they never dared to confront in themselves  
they dressed me in their shame  
and gasped when it fit**

_can you please attempt to resemble something human_  
I asked  
as they unstitched me / like I was never meant to hold together

this is the end of me  
—the version you twisted  
the script you authored  
the character I never agreed to play

you wanted a monster  
so you made one  
but forgot monsters remember

I dreamed I was someone else  
—because in your world, being myself  
was the crime

so I cracked  
softly  
like old glass beneath bare feet  
  
not to shatter  
but to vanish

you’ll find no corpse  
only dust  
and the echo of a name  
you never earned the right to speak

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/62176744f056d3709dfb25286c788c63d6caf9d08185916445c0e145291eb741.jpg)

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*Originally published on [Knepala](https://paragraph.com/@knepala/eidolon-ii)*