There is a sickness in me
no doctor can name,
no mystic can burn out,
no careful science can map.
It lives where light should be-
a hollow,
a gravity,
a quiet devouring.
A black hole stitched behind my ribs
that hums when someone gets too close,
that reaches- hungry-
for anything warm enough to stay.
So I ruin it first.
I fracture the almost-love,
snap the fragile thread
before it can wrap around my throat.
Better I become the storm
than watch them drown in it.
Better they call me cruel
than stand defenseless
at the edge of whatever I am becoming.
Because I have seen it-
that oblivion.
Felt it breathe.
And I do not know
if I escape it,
or if I am it.
My heart still cries out, though-
traitor thing that it is.
It calls to a guardian
I cannot return to,
a mythical beast
with knowing eyes and steady hands,
who once stood between me
and the worst of myself.
I call into the dark for it
like it might answer,
like it might find me
across whatever distance I created.
I mourn in strange ways.
For past lovers
who became ghosts before they ever became real,
for almosts and nearlys
and what-could-have-beens
that dissolve like breath in winter.
For the human I thought I’d grow into-
soft-edged,
open-palmed,
unafraid to be held.
Instead,
I am something split.
Half-shadow, half-reaching,
a creature of two worlds
that do not want me.
Too much storm for gentleness,
too much longing for ruin.
I stand at the threshold of both
and belong to neither-
teeth bared,
heart breaking,
hands empty
- awaiting the moment I feel whole again - even if the hole must take me.
