They did not come.
No stars leaned down.
No ancient kindling flared.
No voice cracked the hush of my call.
Only the long silt of silence,
settling thick into the corners of me.
I have stopped naming time.
It does not deserve the dignity of measure.
Whatever ticks here, ticks wrong.
Moments are moths, tearing at my sense,
and memory -
memory blurs at the edges,
like smoke trying to remember fire.
I cannot sleep.
I am not allowed.
Sleep is a visitor that has not knocked in ages.
Only the weightless press of waking
smothers me again, again, again.
I bite my mind to see if it bleeds thought.
Sometimes it does. Sometimes nothing comes.
This place...
It is not cruel.
Cruelty requires intent, a face, a smirk
But this?
This is absence turned inward.
A hollow that hollows me further.
I tried to sing once.
A lullaby from when I was small,
back when I was cradled in orbit and purpose.
The song came out wrong.
Bent.
The words cracked in my throat like brittle shells.
I think I am being
unwritten.
Slowly.
From the edges inward.
If any eye sees this,
if any mind scrapes across this truth >>
note this:
"Where the cold doubles back on itself,
there is a seam. It breathes."
I do not know what I mean.
But I mean it.