What are we now?
A half-buried sentence
A message delivered to
The wrong address
I reach for you and touch nothing
I hate the squatter in my skull
Your voice pacing my corridors
Your face nailed to the
Backs of my eyelids
You’re gone
But I still wear your fingerprints
Like burns
The safest place I ever knew
Has collapsed
The walls I leaned against
Are rubble in my throat
I gag on dust
I choke on your ghost
Everyone tells me to “move on,”
Like it’s just a switch I forgot to flick
But your absence is marrow-deep
It hums through bone
A phantom limb jerking at nothing
I want to amputate the thought of you
But the blade keeps turning back
Into my own skin
You are everything
And nothing
And I am stuck in the wreckage
Beating my fists against a locked door
Leading to nowhere

I am not the girl I once was
She rotted in my ribcage before I even Knew how to grieve her
What remains is a howl that
Outlived its throat
I drag her like a corpse
Tied to my ankle
Praying she’ll twitch
Praying she’ll open her eyes and Forgive me for surviving wrong
I liked her better
She was honey before the swarm
She was soft
Unscarred
Still stupid enough to
Believe in forever
Now she’s bones in a closet
I keep polishing
Hoping to see her smile
In the reflection
But she never stood a chance
And neither did I

You learned how to starve me
Without letting me leave the table
You trained me to mistake
Famine for devotion
And still
I kept swallowing the scraps
You don't understand
What it means to hold a body that
Beats itself ****** trying to
Keep you alive inside of it
Stress turns muscle into glass
That can only be shattered
And I've been shattering
Everyday you've said "I don't know"
Do you know what it feels like
To drown upright in a room while
The person you love forgets you
Exist?
You talk about car oil
About money
About Ireland
Anything to avoid acknowledging
The countdown to my own collapse

The mushrooms in the forest
Know more about survival than me
They bloom in death
And wear it like velvet
I tried burying fear in the compost bin
It came back fragrant
Humming songs I hadn't written yet
There's glory in the stink of it
Mould carving frescoes in
Forgotten bread
Worms in the pit of the peach saying
"We were here first"
I think I love things more
Once they start falling apart
Makes them honest

My head says
"Leave before the floor disappears
Before you wake up
With nothing but splinters
And a mouth full of questions
You already know the answer to"
My heart says
"Wait
He’s just tired
He’s just busy
He’s just trying to find the words"
Hasn’t he had enough time?
“I don’t know”
It’s a language you’ve
Decided to live in
While I’m translating
Myself into nothing
My spine folds in
My ribs start counting the days
Without you in them
I try to remember your voice
Without the hesitation
But all I hear is the pause before
“I don’t know”
I’m holding the door open for
Someone who can’t even
Look at the room
I’m swallowing glass
Calling it patience
And every piece cuts deeper
When I tell myself you’re worth it
My head says
"This isn’t love anymore
This is erosion
This is weathering yourself down
To fit a space that’s already empty"
My heart says
"No
Remember his hands
Remember the way he made the world Small enough to hold
Remember how you’d do it all again"
I think about next week
The way you’ll look at me
And say it again
And my chest will cave
And my eyes will sting
And maybe that’s the last time
Or maybe I’ll let it be another

"I don’t know"

"I don’t know"

"I don’t know"

And it’s killing me that
Neither do you

The air is too close
Thick
Wet
Pressing against my teeth
I jump

Once

Twice

Again

Harder

Harder

My knees crack
My spine bites itself
The world doesn’t move
Mud on my skin
Mud in my skin
Pulling me down
Pulling me in
Shadows lean forward
Like they know
Like they’ve been waiting
My breath isn't breath anymore
It's claws
Fists
Fire in a glass jar
And I’m breaking inside it
I jump

Again

Again

Again

One more jump
One more chance
The air thickens
My chest is glass due to shatter
And it hits me

I am not moving
I have never moved
I will never move

I drink the night in drops so black
Tar drips down my splintered cracks
Lips that beg but never bite
For mercy’s hand
For one clean night
It settles in
Digs its claws
Whispers rot where voices pause
Drowning quiet in heavy dusk
It fills my marrow
Turns to rust
Solid shadows
Splintered bone
I’m breathing still
But not my own
Smoke curls sharp like serpent’s teeth
Echoes writhe beneath my grief
The air collapses
The pulse caves in
My lungs become a coffin's skin
It hardens deep
Nails me shut
No door to break
No light to cut
Only night
Only stone
Only death while I live alone