Gently,
you press the chill of death against my brow,
a tender crown of frost and ash.
What is this trembling within my ribs—
this flutter,
this frantic bird trapped in a hollow cage?

I am emptied,
scraped clean from the inside out.
I have wished for nothing more than this ending,
nothing more than the stillness behind the veil.

Yet shadows mutter like old ghosts,
their whispers clawing at my ears.
They watch me from a distance,
their eyes like nails.

A faint, feral fear creeps up my spine—
it drags its teeth along my nerves,
punishing me for wanting release.
This is all I asked for,
all I begged for,
and still I flinch before the threshold.

Because when death draws near,
your face—
a memory, a wound—
splinters into my mind.
You drift through me like smoke,
and I am undone again,
caught between the hunger to vanish
and the ache of remembering you.