Their writing often explores themes of introspection, love, loss, and resilience
Nostalgia Will Be the Death of Me
A Poem by Rayne LaDuex
I was the phantom humming beneath your calm—an unlit fuse pressed against your ribs. You were the wildfire I chased in a mirror, each flicker promising salvation while scorching my hands. I told myself I was iron:
“I was in love with the idea of us—an illusion sharper than glass.”
But iron rusts, and glass shatters. Your absence became splinters in my throat, each memory a shard I swallowed whole. The echo of your laughter still throbs beneath my breastbone like a wounded bird desperate to be free.
I held the blindfold tight around my own eyes, convinced that ignorance was devotion. You held the countdown kill switch, your smile a silent metronome ticking toward my undoing. I fed my faith to the flames, thinking I was forging something unbreakable. Instead, I forged my own cage—bars made of hopes that curdled into shame. Now, nostalgia claws at my skin like rats beneath the floorboards, dragging me back to every moment I mistook your shadow for substance.
No one’s going to save me from these cobwebbed memories. They coil around my ankles like serpents, pulling me into the swamp of second-guessing. Each sunrise I rouse myself with trembling hands, terrified that I’ll be wrong again—terrified that my own heart is the traitor. I lie to my reflection:
“I was in love with the thought of you more than the truth of you.”
But the mirror glares back, unflinching, and I see the hollows beneath my eyes—craters filled with the ghosts of mistakes. I kissed your promises like they were holy water, only to taste bile. I believed I could trust myself to discern your light from a lie, and now my own instincts are buried in the charred ruin of my trust.
What might repair your wings tears mine to tatters. Your silence, once my lullaby, is now a scar that pulses with every heartbeat. I’ve clawed at my own skin, hunting for the pulse I thought was yours, only to find mine—ragged, bleeding, alone. I traded my compass for your whisper, and now I stagger through a labyrinth with no exit. Each step is agony, each breath a confession:
“I would have given everything, even if it meant sacrificing the only thing I should have protected—my own faith in myself.”
Nostalgia is the guillotine hovering over my throat, its blade honed by regret. I am counting the beats until it falls, until the memory of your face is the knife that severs me from any hope of believing in love—or in the frail, broken heart that trusted you.
Poetry: “Nostalgia Will Be the Death of Me” (June 16, 2025)
Rayne LaDuex is a passionate writer of poetry and short stories that delve into the raw and often unspoken facets of human experience. Drawing inspiration from the quiet moments of life and the intricate emotions that weave our stories, LaDuex creates work that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. Their writing often explores themes of introspection, love, loss, and resilience.
In addition to writing, LaDuex balances creativity with a career in project management and serves their community as a high school football coach, helping to mentor and inspire the next generation. They find harmony between structure and imagination, weaving these experiences into their art. Silence is their debut collection, a heartfelt offering to those who find solace in words and the spaces between them.
Order Silence here.
