he told me something
once, fleeting
his lips pressed to my ear
whispered, softly,
a ghost
like the feeling of his hands
resting gently on my shoulders
swaying to the sound
of a song that ended long ago
touch and music and breath
and ghosts
but i still see them
and feel them
and hear them
hands and arms and shoulders
and lips and ears and teeth
and ghosts.

i feel like my eyes are puncturing through the tombstones of a life not lived to its fullest. something of the sum of my worth, two holes in my skull that are chock full of air seeping to the brim with thickness and agony, weighs me down in shackles. i am not alone in this place, no, but i am empty, cold and vulnerable and weak, thin and haggard, scraping the surface of living. this—no. this is not living. this is surviving—this is the tightrope wire between surviving and dying—this is, essentially, dying. my mouth is filled with spiderwebs—i speak to no one but myself, hands dry and lips drier, throat raw with a voice i’ve only used to scream.
i cannot scream any more.