Don’t go—
even if life feels worse than a beast’s,
even if breath burns like betrayal.
Hold on.
Hold on tight.

I’ve been holding on—
through storms without names,
through nights that swallow light.

But what comes after?
Is freedom ever certain?
I ask the silence
and it only echoes me.

Still, I slip sometimes.
Carve questions on my skin—
my body, now a lab
of wounds, of want,
of nothing.

Yet still…
still I hold on.

I guess I will—
until the rope
decides
to snap
on its own.