Who do I turn to  
when the world is wrapped in shadow,  
when the silence within me  
swells into a storm I can’t contain?  
The darkness stretches endlessly,  
a hollow chasm so deep  
that even those who glimpse its edge  
step back,  
afraid to fall,  
afraid they’ll never climb back out.  

What do I do  
when I offer my hand,  
aching for connection,  
only to feel it left untouched?  
Not out of cruelty,  
but fear—  
fear that holding me  
might pull them under too.  
What do I do  
when pain feels like the only constant,  
its embrace familiar,  
its weight suffocating—  
yet safe?  

I tell myself,  
“It’s not the worst it’s been.  
I know these shadows.  
I know how to exist  
in this quiet absence of light.”  
The darkness, for all its heaviness,  
is steady.  
But the sun—  
the sun blinds me with its demands,  
its brightness asks for a joy  
I no longer have.  
It wants a version of me  
that I left behind long ago.  

So I swallow my words,  
tuck them deep where no one can see.  
Who would want to hear them?  
Who could stand the weight of them?  
Negative thoughts cling like smoke,  
choking the air between us,  
so I stay quiet,  
choosing the solitude of silence  
over the risk of being too much.  

I know I could come to you.  
But how much could I truly share  
before you see where I stand—  
before you realize the depth of my shadows,  
and step back like the rest?  

Maybe it’s better this way.  
To lock the cracks inside,  
to hold my brokenness close,  
so it doesn’t seep into your light.  
You don’t see me cry,  
but you don’t see me dance either.  
And I wonder—  
if I let you in,  
if I unraveled the truth of my pain,  
would you listen?  
Or would you leave?  

Would my shadows smother the light you see in me?  
Would you forget the laughter,  
the joy I once carried,  
and see only the storm  
that lingers now?  
What version of me lives in your mind?  
The one who danced freely,  
or the one who crumbles beneath the weight of silence?  

If I speak my pain,  
will it become yours too?  
Maybe it’s selfish to burden you.  
Maybe it’s better to carry it alone,  
to bury it deep where no one can find it.  
Maybe I can protect you  
from the darkness that calls me home.  

But even as I shield you from my rain,  
even as I let your sun shine unbroken,  
I feel myself fading.  
The edges of who I am  
grow thin and blurred,  
a quiet erosion of everything I used to be.  

What good is it to stay silent,  
to keep you near,  
if I lose myself in the process?  
What good is it to save you from my storm,  
if I drown in the flood alone?