The walls breathe in, exhale.
He is afraid. The air is thick with it,
coiling like smoke from a dying fire.
A battlefield of splintered desks,
shoes scraping linoleum—
a boy thrashing against himself,
limbs loose, a puppet whose strings
have snapped.

I lie here staring at the bluest of skies,
a lie in itself, because the sky is nothing,
just a ceiling of quiet indifference.
The weight of voices settles on my chest,
mocking relentless, pressing, pressing—
a hive swarming beneath my ribs.

His mother weeps into cupped hands,
his father stares into the nowhere beyond
the drywall, jaw clenched,
as if holding his teeth in place
will keep the world from crumbling.
Every mistake, a fault line.
Every silence, an aftershock.

The bees fall, their golden dust wasted.
He kicks and kicks, a metronome of rage.
The desks collapse like ribs cracking,
his voice—feral, raw—
rakes against the air.

I want you to know, my friends,
you’re the reason I’m not running away.
But the words fall dead in my mouth,
drowned beneath the hum of fluorescence,
the sterile hands of pity reaching, reaching,
but never grasping.

The hive bleeds.
The world stares back, unmoved.
He is sorry, but there is no language for it,
only the heavy sound of breath,
a body too small for such a war.