The Quiet Collapse

Morning drags her thin fingers

across my chest,

but I do not rise.

The air thickens,

pressing me into the mattress

like a fossil waiting to be unearthed.

Even the light avoids me,

slanting cruelly against the walls,

sharpening every shadow.

Inside, the world is raw.

A hum that never ceases,

a static pulse behind my ribs.

I hold my breath,

as if stillness could trick the body

into forgetting its own ache.

I move, but not forward—

small circles, tightening with every step,

a spiral carved by invisible hands.

Every sound is a shatter.

Every thought a stone

dropping into an endless well,

the echo swallowed before it can return.

I am afraid of the mirror,

afraid of the vacant stare it will offer back.

The hollow grin of someone

who speaks the language of others

but cannot translate her own silence.

There are days I am a cracked jar,

leaking everything that once mattered—

hope, desire, even fear.

What remains is a dry, brittle hum,

a body going through its motions,

a mind pulling at its own threads.

Still, I sit here,

a question mark folded into itself.

The world will not stop turning,

but I wonder

what it would feel like

to step off

and let the spin continue without me.