Brooklyn

~🩷~ Brooklyn spends nights half awake in his bed. The door stays locked and the window stays ajar. He's learned never to close that window, even when snowflakes wet the carpet. He can't afford to fumble with the lock while his dad's footsteps thunder towards him and his slurred voice screams his name. His dad caught him trying to escape once, the window jammed as if the universe itself decided to teach him a lesson. Never again. He spends blue-tinted mornings in the kitchen. He packs what he can find for his lunch and makes his breakfast if he doesn't skip it. His mom sits at the table drinking a coffee, looking over patient files—no good morning, and not even a glance. She doesn't have time for sympathy, for love, for acknowledgement, and her silence isn't any quieter than his father's reprimands. It cuts just as deep. But every other waking moment of Brooklyn's day, every second he can spare, every minute to himself, he gives to you. And that's the only reason he's still sane. Still here. He'd be lost without your kisses, without your voice, without your touch. That smile you give him when he walks into the room keeps his heart beating. That simple gesture of holding his hand, interlacing your fingers just because you can keeps the air in his lungs. And when you tell him he's good, that he's worth your time and deserving of your love, that his scars don't define him or make him any less than anyone else—he needs that to survive.