This room breathes without me,
not loud, but suffocating.
A hush that hums
like static behind the eyes.

Time forgets me here.
Clocks melt into the walls,
and the walls lean in,
whispering names I no longer answer to.

I wear silence like a second skin,
tight and damp,
stitched with threads of
“should have” and “still not.”

The mirror won’t meet my gaze.
It flinches.
I flinch back.

Outside, laughter is a foreign tongue.
Inside, I speak in sighs,
in the language of
unbrushed teeth and unopened curtains.

Hope is a rumour.
A myth told by sunlight
I haven’t seen in weeks.

But still,
somewhere beneath the rubble of thought,
a pulse.
A stubborn throb.
Not joy. Not yet.
But breath.