Shame wakes with her.
A shadow at the bedside.
It knows her name.
It hooks a finger
under her chin—
Look.
And she does.
Every morning:
the mirror, the smear
of yesterday’s mask,
the new one waiting.
Beauty thinning.
Age creeping.
She powders the cracks,
but Shame sees through—
X-ray eyes,
smug.
Her tongue? A blade.
Nothing escapes uncut.
He takes the brunt:
the blame, the hiss,
the neat little darts
she fires from habit.
Precision cruelty.
But the target is wrong.
She knows that.
Won’t look at it.
Self-love slogans
stacked like crystals
on her windowsill.
Mantras, moon-water,
the whole woo-woo circus.
Yet Shame is the ringmaster—
cracking its whip,
calling the tricks.
She knows the origin story.
Of course she does.
But naming it
would set the room on fire.
So she projects—
flings her hurt outward
like hot ash.
He gets the burn.
He recognises it now—
his own shame
speaks the same language.
Only his folds inward,
quiet as a bruise.
Hers flies—
a fist, a snarl, a flurry.
But he steps aside.
Lets it whistle past.
No longer cast in her play,
no longer the villain
in her one-woman show.
Shame shrinks without an audience.
Its roar collapses
to a whine—
thin, hollow,
paper-tiger sound.