Layla Soreyne's Blog

Ever wondered what your heart is trying to say?
The mind will repeat what the heart wants to hear…

The Reflection Pool

They say the Reflection Pool only appears to the lost, though no one really knows what that means. It isn’t on maps, not even the old ones with forgotten trails and names that no one speaks anymore. It’s the kind of place you hear about in stories that seem too quiet to carry any real weight—until they find you.

Marin hadn’t been looking for it. She’d been running. The storm had crept in without a warning—thick and sudden, the kind of summer rain that makes the air feel alive. She couldn’t say when the path vanished or how long she had been walking. Hours, maybe. Long enough for the trees to blur into one endless wall of green.

When Marin stumbled into the clearing, she didn’t think of those stories. She thought of the storm behind her, the trail she couldn’t find and the ache in her legs.

The clearing was small and perfect, as if the forest had split open just enough to let something settle there. Marin stopped at the edge with her chest heaving, hands still clutching the straps of her pack. The air here was… different. Cooler. Almost sweet, like the smell before snowfall. And there, in the center, was the pool.

It was small and ringed with moss that looked soft enough to sleep on.

Marin let her arms drop to her sides. The water in the pool sat still, so still it was almost wrong. There were no ripples, no breeze stirring it. It reflected the clearing perfectly—every branch, every leaf—and yet, it didn’t. Marin moved closer, just enough to see the sky reflected back.

Except it wasn’t this sky.

When Marin looked closer, the sky in the pool didn’t match the sky above. Where there should have been clouds, there were stars. Thousands of them, spilling across the surface like someone had broken a jar of light. She moved closer without meaning to, boots sinking into the moss. “Just a trick,” she said, though it didn’t sound right. Her voice felt swallowed, muffled by the stillness around her.

Marin knelt without thinking, her palms sinking into the damp earth as she stared into the water. The pool smelled faintly of metal, like rainwater left in a tin pail. She looked at her reflection, expecting something to be off. It always was with water like this—too deep, too smooth.

Her face stared back. The same wide eyes, the same strands of hair stuck to her damp forehead. She leaned closer, just enough for her breath to fog the water’s surface.

The reflection blinked.

She flinched, nearly falling back, the heels of her boots slipping on the soft earth. Her heart banged in her chest, too quick, too loud.

“That’s not—” Her voice broke the silence, small and fragile in a place like this.

She looked again. The reflection smiled.

It was small—barely there—but she felt it like a hand closing around her wrist. Marin’s throat felt dry. Then the whisper came.

“Come and see.”

She thought of standing up, walking away, pretending none of this had happened. But she didn’t. Her hand slowly reached out instead. The water wasn’t cold when she touched it. It wasn’t warm either. Just… nothing.

And then the world fell away.

continue reading at: https://fictionate.me/l/b/KBAHPL

How real was it, I wonder, when Sylvia Plath wrote?

How real was it, I wonder, when Sylvia Plath wrote?
When her words coiled tight,
Each line sharp enough to draw blood,
Yet tender enough to feel like a whispered confession.

Was it the ink pressed into the page,
Or the air she pulled through her teeth as she shaped it,
That made it ache so deeply,
So undeniably alive?

I think of her sometimes,
How her words seemed to breathe,
How they held the quiet courage
Of someone daring to peel back the layers
And stand in the rawness beneath.

How real must it have been,
To turn her pain into something that still lingers—
Not as a wound, but as a hand reaching out,
Steady and unflinching.

I wonder, when she wrote,
If she felt herself disappearing,
Or if, in those moments,
She was the most she had ever been.

lost at sea,
she lets the rainfall wash her clean,
its quiet insistence scrubbing her bare,
day after day.
her lipstick is smudged,
familiar and unnoticed,
like the sadness she’s learned to wear.

she moves as if held together by a thread,
thinking a single touch
might crumble her into a million tiny pieces,
each one embedding itself in you.
she looks for signs of danger
in the ordinary
and concedes defeat daily.

she used to believe in everything,
the magic, the promises, the light.
but that faith unraveled,
leaving her holding nothing but shadows
until she believed in nothing.

she practices her voice in the mirror,
the words catching in her throat.
fear turns into tears,
tears into silence.

she paints herself in soft, muted greys,
layers of fog that blur her edges,
and waits, hopeful,
for something—
a lighthouse, a steady hand,
a beacon of strength
to bring her to shore,
to guide her back to a place
where she can feel whole again.

“Between streetlamps and shadow,
you said my name,
and it felt like something
I had forgotten I was looking for.”

Go—
you’ve threatened it enough,
wielded it like a weapon,
a hollow ultimatum,
and I’m done.
I’m tired of crafting excuses,
reasons to tether you here,
tired of walking on the tightrope
of your fragile pride,
only to find I’ve worn my own soul thin.

I’m exhausted.
Every word feels like a mine,
carefully placed but always ready
to trigger one of your theatrical storms.
Go—
if leaving has always been your escape plan.
Let me step off this dizzying carousel,
this ride of volatile highs and crushing lows.
I no longer know what awaits me with you—
sunshine and sweet laughter?
Or the sharp claws of guilt and despair?

I’ve bent myself backwards, sideways,
into shapes that don’t belong to me,
trying to fit the version of myself
that you needed me to be.
Now, I’m lost,
a stranger in my own skin.

Go—
find your joy wherever you may.
I am done painting skies
with colors I no longer see,
done chasing fleeting light,
done trying to build you golden castles
from the rubble of my dreams.

From now on,
I’ll guard my own heart,
I’ll stitch together my own dreams,
I’ll tend to my own wounds.

Go—
and leave me to remember
what it feels like
to be whole again.

Writing a novel is easy. Just stare at a blank screen until your soul shatters into a million pieces.

“Mariam sat on the creaking wooden steps of her family’s old farmhouse, the weathered boards groaning beneath her weight. The fields beyond, once filled with rows of wheat and olive trees, had withered under years of neglect, parched like the hearts left behind by war.”Some places carry the weight of every memory, every silence. Have you ever stood in a place that feels like it’s holding its breath?

She was wildfire made flesh,
each step a spark catching the dry edges of the world.
Her voice rose, a crackling hiss against the night,
her laughter an ember tossed skyward,
only to fall and scorch the earth beneath her feet.

But there were moments,
when the inferno stilled,
when her eyes mirrored a sea after the storm—
unfathomable, ancient, calm,
hiding chaos beneath its mirrored surface.
Her silence wrapped around him,
heavy as smoke,
soft as the brush of a wave retreating from the shore.

And he—he was caught in her storm,
both scourged and soothed.
Her flame kissed his edges,
left scars where skin was once whole,
and yet, the tide of her calm
pulled him back, again and again,
to her quiet destruction.

He did not try to name her.
The wildfire, the sea—
she was both,
and he was only the driftwood,
splintering, burning,
and carried away.