There is an ache that folds
like paper
soaked through,
crumpled in the cold,
collapsing
centre
of me.

With nothing more than a whisper,
it returns,
as if just moments before
I suffered this mortal injury.

Its power unbound—
ready to consume me
if I let it.

Some days,
I beg this ache to vanish,
leave me hollow, free.

It guards me from healing,
a quiet, faithful dog,
licking old wounds
to keep them open.

I sink into this quicksand of memory,
then fossilize in grief’s amber—
trapped, not treasured.

How can I let it go,
when its grip
is all I have known?

And yet, I breathe it still,
not by choice,
but because forgetting
would mean losing the last of it.

I move through sorrow’s veil,
a torn page curling on wind,
almost-free.

A figure lurks in the shadows,
its gaze fixed on me,
expectant
hungry
lifeless.

As I walk on the narrow path
of life – unaware at first,
I feel its presence
slowing my steps with unseen weight
like stones filling my pockets underwater.
The sun dims when its near,
colours leaching from the world.
I want to run,
but the path narrows,
thins to a tightrope beneath me.

The figure waits
forever patient,
sometimes distant as mountains,
sometimes close as my own shadow.

It grabs the coattails
of my existence,
clawing its way closer
with each heartbeat,
each exhale,
each moment of forgetting.
Until I can feel
its breath
on my neck.

It whispers in the voice I know too well,
murmurs dressed as memory,
lullabies of failure,
groans of what might have been.

I do not turn,
But I know it waits.

A figure lurks in the shadows,
Still, I walk on.
I have places to go
Before it takes me.