Witness

Ash in the air, chamber breathe slow

Walls full of wounds that collapse and glow

Cracked glass callin’ in a dead moon light

She walked in broken, came out with sight

Mara in the mirror, Maya in the mist

One said “feel the wound,” one said “it don’t exist”

Ash to the fire, fog to the flame

She lost who she was just to remember her name

She stood alone where the black walls breathed

Every scream she swallowed still lived underneath

Hands tremblin’, heavy with rage and grief

A thousand dead nights with no relief

She walked to the mirror, the whole room stilled

Saw Mara starin’ back with a warrior’s will

Eyes cut hollow, lips built mean

Heart full of armor where love should’ve been

Mara said, “I’m the fire your suffering made

I made you a fortress, a mask, a blade

I kept you alive when the world went cold

Without me, little girl, you’d have never grown old”

Down in the dream where the old ghosts crawl

Half of her built just to survive it all

Half of her floating above the ache

One learned to fight, one learned to fake

She wanted freedom, she found the split

A soul in fragments inside the myth

Then Maya bloomed in the smoke behind

Silk in her voice, stars in her eyes

Soft like a lie that feels like peace

“I gave you dreams when you needed release

I made pain pretty, made ruin look clean

Turned your despair to a beautiful scene

I kept you above it, untouched, unreal

Cause truth was too sharp and the wound wouldn’t heal”

Then both turned toward her, spoke the same line:

“We never betrayed you. We bought you time.”

And the chamber broke open, memories burned

Every old version of her returned

Five years old, hiding under the screams

Fifteen, sedated, falling from dreams

Twenty, all rage with a fist full of night

Thirty, alone, askin’, “Why can’t I get right?”

Mara in the mirror, Maya in the mist

One said “feel the wound,” one said “it don’t exist”

Ash to the fire, fog to the flame

She lost who she was just to remember her name

She fell to her knees, said, “I can’t be both

I can’t be the silence, the wound, and the ghost”

Then deeper than pain, deeper than disguise

Something inside her rose and replied:

“Witness.”

Time froze. Breath slowed.

The mirror flickered like a vein of gold.

If Mara was pain, and Maya was flight,

Then who was the one still holding the light?

Who watched them form?

Who stayed through the flame?

Who lived behind every face, every name?

Not the wound.

Not the mask.

Not the roles she became.

But the quiet awareness that never abandoned her name.

Now Mara is fire and Maya is rain

Both of them holy when called by her name

Ash became soil, shadows could rest

The mirror turned clear in the center of her chest

She walked out whole from the ruins inside

Not Mara, not Maya—

but the one who survived

“I am the fire that purifies illusion

I am the dream that remembers the truth

I am the wisdom born from suffering.”