I stand beneath pale shivers of blue,
a ledge like a wound cut wide,
leaking light that curls and fades,
pulling shadows from my feet.
Blue light spills down my arms,
its slick mouth gasping
for something to hang on to—
the cliff feels like the last place
that will suffer the burn of my absence.
Roots claw up my spine,
half-snarled, half-reaching,
piercing the arches of my feet,
climbing into my pounding chest
and dragging me down.
The rocks beneath me ache—
I am nothing but their raw bruise,
a silent scream knotted deep,
twisting beneath the skin of stone.
Branches coil like fists,
aching against the merciless pull,
caught between the rise of ocean and sky,
a fragile, but ravenous hunger.
The sky itself feels knotted,
like the moment before something snaps
and imagination comes loose in the dark.
I know this place—
The bones in my legs shiver,
like a cry drowned in memory.
I feel the pull, not from the ground,
but from a need to let go—
a hunger refusing to stay quiet.
Each step forward feels like tearing—
not the clean rip of a bandage,
but the slow tearing of skin from bone.
I stop just before the last place
where I can call myself one,
held to ground I barely know,
hostile, toward the place
where light dies—
my bones hollow and cold.
And so, I stand here, bare—
a shadow stitched to air,
waiting to see
if the light will come back to me,
or if I will fall.