The Ones Who Vanished

The Ones Who Vanished

She carved her particulars into the drywall beside the red-marked X,Said if they come back through that door they’ll find her teeth before her neck,Her eyes were empty postcards from a country that had long refused to heal,Every breath she reclaimed felt like something excavated from a battlefield.There were four of them before her and nobody speaks their particulars aloud,Like if the silence goes sufficiently thick it’ll absorb all of the unresolved crowd,She ran through alleys sutured with screaming that no official party came to trace,Ran so hard and so far she left a piece of herself in that specific place.[Chorus]This is for the ones who vanished — lost in the most visible plain sight,For the women they labeled unstable when they told the truth about the night,For every whispered threat wearing good perfume and a community smile,
This is for the ones who vanished — for the ones who didn’t make the mile.He found her boot in the roadside weeds behind the establishment of prayer,One lace still tied like a deliberate vow, the other burned into the air,They concluded she ran away again like her bruising had made a choice and packed,But we all saw the evidence on the pavement — that’s a different kind of fact.[Chorus]This is for the ones who vanished — lost in the most visible plain sight,
For the women they labeled unstable when they told the truth about the night,For every whispered threat wearing good perfume and a community smile,
This is for the ones who vanished — for the ones who didn’t make the mile.Leave the porch light on and a blade beside the door,
They’re coming back — and they’re not afraid anymore.—