there is a fissure  
            in the air,  

quiet like a breath held too long—
and in that silence,
i wonder if
you see
the cracks
in the way
i speak,
in the way
i bend,
in the way my skin
doesn’t fit
like it used to.

do you notice the way
i speak of “us,”
but never of “me”?

i’ve stitched my truth
in places you won’t look —
it hangs like a forgotten photograph
on the edge of a shelf,
where the light
won’t touch it,
where the air is thick
with questions
too sharp to ask.

            you ask,  
             but not really,  
             and i answer,  
                  but not fully.  

we are strangers wearing
the same names,
as if we’ve all agreed
that silence tastes better
than the truth.
so i hide behind my words,
dressing them in the
language you want to hear,
but they are hollow
like rooms
with no doors.

                 i feel the  
                     weight  
            of your eyes,  
                       but they  
                       are blind  
                 to what has shifted—  
             like a tree growing sideways,  
              the roots pulling away  
            from the earth  
                and the branches  
            reaching toward something  
                     you would never understand.  
      can you hear the hum in my chest?  
        can you feel the tremor  
               in the space between us?  
i have folded myself in half  
       so many times,  
                you can no longer  
                 see the shape of me.  

               but the fear stays,  
                 creeping in the  
             corners of the room,  
                beneath the words,  
            behind the smiles—  
      the distrust is a shadow  
           that no light can erase,  
    because every truth  
              i’ve never spoken  
                is buried in the dark,  
        and i wonder—  
    if you dig deep enough,  
          will you find me?  
          or will you leave me here,  
                    silent, hidden,  
                   waiting for a truth  
                     i cannot share?