Aven Lysander

The Boy Who Speaks in Smoke

Aven didn’t believe in coincidence.

He believed in signs. And patterns.

And in poems that came to him fully formed —

as if whispered through walls only he could hear.

He’d transferred schools six times.

No one ever asked why.

No one ever asked him much at all.

He wore his voice like a coat:

Only when needed. Never for comfort.

But his notebooks were heavy with unsaid things.

That morning, he wrote this line without knowing why:

“I dream in silence, but wake in fire.”

He didn’t remember dreaming.

But the scent of smoke clung to his sleeves.