dissolve.

they wake in the volume of something unfinished,

the noise doesn't build, it was never not there,

a frequency humming beneath every surface,

the current that runs through the roots of their hair.

they move through the hours like someone who's studied

the way that a person is meant to feel,

they've mapped every gesture and copied the timing

but something keeps slipping, the copy's not real.

and the people who love them only love what they're given,

the warmth and the wit and the way that they shine,

“so present”, they say, never knowing the distance

between who shows up and the one left behind.

the wiring was laid in the walls of a childhood

too loud in the silence, too quiet in the pain,

they learned how to read every shift in the weather

before they knew weather could simply be rain.

there's a door in them nobody's been patient enough for,

the rough and the tender existing as one,

she dances alone in the hours before morning, still mourning the self that has only begun

they're always becoming, and never quite done.

they bend like the reeds when the cold wind is near,

their body a vessel of tension and fear,

yet in the small hush, a note bright and clear,

a bloom in the shadow, ethereal, sheer.

each step is a whisper, a secret in motion,

a river of feeling, a soft spoken ocean,

they’re learning to live in the folds of devotion,

to wilt and to bend without losing emotion.

the mirrors still show a face rearranged,

a self that is shifting, familiar yet strange,

each thought is a ripple, each feeling exchanged,

in the quiet, their soul it starts to estrange.

they wilt in the corners, they fold in the night,

their glow is a tremor, their sorrow a light,

each tear is a rhythm, each sigh is a flight,

bending, never breaking and holding on tight.

they burn in the turn of the season, no reason,

the treason of feeling before they can think, the high and the low and the not letting go,

the pendulum swinging them right to the brink

they've always been told that they're close to the edge.

they've always been told that they're close to the edge.

fear.

it’s late and the hallway is stretching and bending,

the light at the end isn’t glowing, it’s dimming,

you swear that you heard something move in the distance,

but nothing is there when you turn to go listen.

no, wait. did it shift? was that breath or the vent?

that step. was it yours or something that followed you in?

you lock every door but the feeling’s persistent,

like something’s inside you, not out where you’re living

your heart’s in your throat and it won’t settle down,

every creak in the floor sounds too loud, too pronounced,

you’re counting the seconds, and the silence counts back,

and the walls start to close like they’re mapping your path.

you blink and the room isn’t shaped like before,

the ceiling is lower, there’s less of the door,

you try to stay still but your body won’t listen,

your shadow just moved and it didn’t ask permission

you laugh just to test if the sound's even yours,

but it echoes too long, like it opened a door,

and something behind it is starting to grin

you feel it get closer but don’t turn again the air gets metallic, you taste it, it lingers,

your pulse in your ears like it’s drumming with fingers,

each flicker of light is a stutter, a glitch,

like time hit a nerve and it’s stuck in a twitch

you step but the floor doesn’t stay where it should,

it shifts like it’s learning the weight that you put,

the walls have a memory, holding your shape,

like they’ve seen you before and they’re sealing the space.

you whisper “I’m fine” but the line feels rehearsed,

like something else said it and you just reversed,

your voice comes back wrong, like it’s slightly delayed,

like it’s not really yours just a sound that you made.

now the corners are breathing, expanding and thin,

every edge of the room seems to sharpen its grin,

you swear you just saw yourself pass in the glass,

but you haven’t even moved and it never looked back

you turn, nothing there, then you turn back again,

and the version you saw hasn’t moved from the tin,

it’s staring too hard, like it knows what you’ll do,

like it’s waiting for something to step out of you.

your thoughts start to loop like a glitch in a reel, cut, same frame again, cut, it’s starting to feel

like the script’s been rewritten but left you behind,

now you’re stuck in the edit, repeating the line

“was that me?” then it echoes “was that me?” but it splits,

into voices that layer and slip into pitch,

now the silence is loud, now the quiet is screaming,

now the fear isn’t felt it’s the thing that is feeling

your hands aren’t yours, they’re just shapes you wear,

your breath isn’t yours, it’s just filling the air,

and the thing in the mirror steps out of the frame

now it’s closer, it’s clearer, it’s calling your name

but it’s wrong just a little. the tone doesn’t land,

like it learned how you speak but not quite how you stand,

it tilts when you tilt, but a second too late,

like it’s syncing itself just to copy your shape

and you realize slow, like a crack in the glass,

it’s not something chasing it’s something you passed,

something left in the edits, the cuts, the retakes,

every version of you that you tried to erase.

and the hallway dissolves but the echo remains,

every step that you took just circled the same,

no more doors, no more exits, no space left to move

stuck in a loop where the “you” that you use isn’t you, it’s a user that's losing the truth in the view of a skewed inner viewer,

who knew you would view what you do from a newer intruder

you’re two in a body, the body’s a booth for the rumor-

has it the “you” that you knew was a rumor itself,

a consumer of masks you’ve been using for humor and help,

now the humor is humored, the help isn’t helping, it’s helmed

by a version of you that was shelved but is moving itself

moving in movements you made but refused to admit,

every slip of the lip now’s a script that it spits,

every breath is a bet that you’re next to be split

into “me” and “the thing that I kept in the depths of the pit”-

in your stomach, you stomach the summoning, summing it up,

all of the lines are aligning and climbing,

till you’re stuck in the structure you built just to function as “us,”

but the “us” is erupting and cutting the cut from the cut—

and the thing that you feared finally steps into view

it moves how you move, every breath interlaced,

every word you suppressed sitting sharp in its face,

every tremor you buried comes back in its stance,

like it learned every version of you by a glance

now it’s closer no space, no distinction, no split,

every inch that you are now aligns onto it, you go still it goes still like a perfectly synced

imitation that knows you more deep than you think

every pause in your chest, every edge of a blink,

every word you don’t say sits sharp on its tongue,

like it’s lived in your throat since before you were young

it steps even closer, no space left between,

no shadow, no distance, no “might have been seen,”

you try not to look but it forces your gaze

and you’re face to a face that you know many ways

then the walls start to flicker the hallway goes thin,

like a film burning out from the reel it was in,

every corner dissolves, every doorway unthreads,

all the dark drains away like it lived in your head

and you’re back in your room.

nothing’s moved. nothing’s changed.

just the hum of the air and the shape of your frame,

your hand in the mirror still slightly unsure,

like you’re checking what’s real but can’t tell.

"has it all been a dream was I just in my bed?"

your reflection just watches.

not wrong. not delayed. not behind. not ahead.

in the end you find out it was all in your head

fuck I just woke up all over again,

now I snap into static and sweat with a grin,

stuck in a panic? depends where the panic begins,

hands hit the dresser like it’s hiding a debt,

wood splinters whisper every time that I press,

clicking in my skull like a metronome sick,

tick tock, every thought doing backflips so quick,

mirror’s in pieces but I still see it grin,

like it knows what I did but won’t say where it’s been.

fuck it, I’m flooded no faucet, just flood in my veins,

hurricane lungs with a thunderstorm brain,

every breath that I take is a blade in disguise,

every blink is a blackout that fractures my eyes,

I stomp, I spiral, I splinter the floor,

hear the house start to echo like it’s asking for more,

doors don’t exist, they just pretend to be sealed,

but everything opens when the pressure is real,

I laugh and it snaps like a thread in my chest,

comes out like a signal that’s been over-pressed,

now every sound doubles, every shadow repeats,

like the room learned my rhythm and is copying me,

I’m not in the room I’m the pulse of the place,

I’m the crack in the ceiling, the air, and the space, and the harder I fight it, the tighter it grips,

like the chaos is written in my nervous script.

then everything stops.

no blood. no storm. no collapse in the frame.

just silence like glass with my breath in its name.

hands on the sheet like they never knew fire.

room just a room. no monster, no wire.

and I’m back in my bed

still stable and whole

quietly scared I was never alone.

attack.

empty and cold with a huge roaring ember,

a glass that's half empty and a glass that I spilled,

I toss and I turn, I keep switching the angles,

but every perspective just makes me more ill.

and I know that I know that I know what I’m doing,

but knowing don’t change it, the feeling is fluent,

I’m the push and the pull and the pause in the movement,

a riddle I’m living but lose any proof of

I’m up in the morning like something is pending,

by quarter to three, already descending,

I’m “fine” but the kind that you don’t see inspected,

just hiding in sight if you know what you’re sensing

I’m sick of the tone and I’m sick of the smiling,

the filing away of the shit I’m compiling

got handed a map to a place I don’t live in,

and told that their guidance was helping me stiffen

now cracks in the structure are starting to widen,

your discipline culture it’s all misaligned, and

I talk to the voices, they echo, they chime in,

they show me the grey but stay blind to the silent they preach about nuance but miss all my true wants,

what I need is to bleed and just slip down my mask

I’m building a self out of borrowed behavior,

a flavor I savor, facade I become

they’re reading me wrong, I keep feeding the fiction,

I’m losing resistance, I’m choosing the numb.

I’m masking in public, performing in private,

I study reactions, I mirror, I hide it,

I’m hyper aware of the way that I’m seen

but don’t even know if there’s a real me inside it.

I didn’t exist in the script that they wrote for the role,

I’m folding, I’m molding to fit in the shapes they try and control,

but control is a joke when the hole in the whole of my soul

starts to swallow the focus, I’m broken, I know it,

I bite on the feeling, conceal it, then beat it to pulp and

repeat it, delete it, like “keep it, don’t speak it for help,”

I’m needing a reason to be who I am when I’m felt,

but even my shadow’s been acting like somebody else

indifferent, belligerent, ambivalent and split in a self,

a sediment of sentiment settling in shelves,

I’m living in layers of narratives telling themselves,

but never the truth, it’s a loop I’ve been stuck in as well now this is the part where I’m done with pretending,

done with defending the way that I’m bending,

if I say what I mean, will you leave or start mending

a version of me that was never intended

no matter what I say, you'll probably still miss it;

I'm not who you see I'm just good at the mimic

you hear what you want, not the truth that I’m giving.

you talk like you get it though you never get near me,

you package my pain into lessons to hear me,

you label, you file it, then act like you cured me,

but none of you listened you just reassured me.

"you're fine” while I’m losing the thread,

you smile and you nod like you live in my head,

you love all the parts of me easy to sell,

but turn from the ones that are harder to tell

I’m not your example, your project, your proof,

I’m not your perspective to water the truth,

you speak of self love, then just flatten my use,

reduce me to something convenient for you

convenient and neat little pieces you pick, you stick to the script while I’m losing my grip,

you want me consistent, compliant, convinced,

but I’m sick of pretending this version exists

I don’t wanna mask it, I don’t wanna play it,

don’t tell me to “name it”. you won’t even say it,

you dance round the edges of shit that I’m in,

then start saying “progress” while I drown within

so keep all your guidance, your hollow advice,

your “try to be patient,” your “give it some time,”

I’ve given you everything short of the truth,

and you still never see me, you just see the proof.

resolve.

I see it now in the way that you speak,

how you cut me off quick when it’s getting too deep,

like you’re scared if you stop you might actually feel

something under the version of you that you keep.

you don’t mean it you mirror what someone once did,

turn avoidance to armor, deflect and dismiss,

you don’t hear what I’m saying, you hear what it risks,

so you soften the truth till it barely exists.

and I used to get angry, like “why don’t you see it?”

like I’m screaming in a room and you’re choosing to leave it,

but I’ve been that exact kind of deaf to a feeling

when it’s too close to home, you just quietly mute it.

you call it “I’m fine,” but I know what that means,

it means “don’t look too long or you’ll ruin the scene,”

it means “if I name it, it might not stay clean,”

so you keep it between all the lines in between.

and I get it. I get why you laugh when it isn’t that funny,

why you talk like you’re good when your voice sounds unsteady,

why you stay in the light where it’s easier, safe. ‘cause the dark doesn’t ask, it just takes when it’s ready.

I see it in strangers that pass on the street,

in the ones over smiling at things that ain’t sweet,

in the ones who go quiet the second you reach

anything underneath what they want you to see.

everybody’s performing a version that works,

everybody’s got something they bury at first,

and the deeper it sits, the more careful the words

so I don’t even blame you for missing my point,

you’re protecting a system you didn’t appoint,

you were handed that voice, that avoidance, that noise

now it speaks over everything real to avoid.

and it hurts but it’s different, it’s quieter now,

not the kind that explodes, more the kind that allows

me to see you’re not cruel, you’re just doing what keeps

you from breaking the same way I’m breaking right now.

and the quiet gets louder when nothing’s distracting,

no noise left to hide in, no role left to play,

just the raw kind of presence you can’t really label,

just the weight of existing that won’t go away. and it’s strange how the mind tries to frame it as failure,

like you missed some instruction, like you fell behind,

like there’s people who figured out how to be stable

and you’re stuck in a version that won’t realign.

but I’ve seen “stable” crack under pressure in private,

seen the masks fall apart when there’s no one around,

so I question the standard I held like a weapon,

like if I don’t meet it then I must be unsound.

maybe nobody’s balanced, just better at hiding,

better at timing the breaks in between,

better at stitching a version together

that passes as whole from the outside looking in.

and I used to chase that polished illusion,

try to sand down the edges, make everything clean,

but the more that I forced it, the more it just fractured,

like I’m fighting a shape I was not meant to be.

so I loosen my grip on the need to be “fixed,”

on the urge to correct every thought as it forms,

‘cause some things aren’t errors, they’re just part of being

a mind that can’t always be kept in a norm. and that doesn’t mean giving up, letting it rot,

it’s not apathy dressed in a softer disguise,

it’s just choosing to sit with the parts that are messy

without turning away or demanding they lie.

‘cause the war with yourself doesn’t make you more worthy,

it just drains what was left of your will to repair,

and there’s something more honest not weaker, just quieter

in admitting you’re tired of fighting in there.

so I shift how I measure the ground that I’m standing,

not by how far I am from some version I built,

but by whether I stayed when it started collapsing,

by whether I carried it without turning to guilt.

and that’s harder than running, it’s harder than numbing,

harder than turning it into a game,

‘cause there’s no real victory, no clean resolution,

just a slower, more deliberate way to remain.

and maybe that’s all that this moment is asking,

not to solve it or spin it or make it profound,

just to stand in the aftermath, fully aware,

without reaching for something to drown it back down. and I try to step out of my own point of view,

just to see what it does when it’s filtered through you

if I carried your weight like it lived in my bones,

would I still call it heavy, or call it my own?

but you'd have to walk a thousand miles

in my shoes just to see what's it's like to be me

I'll be you, let's trade shoes

just to see what it'd be like to feel your pain

you feel mine, go inside each other's minds just to see what we find.

look at shit through each other's eyes

so I stay not because I’ve mastered the feeling,

not because I’ve suddenly made it make sense,

but because I’m not leaving myself in the ruins

just to say I escaped at my own expense.

emancipate.

I wore the winter like a given name,

carried its grey the way you carry shame

quietly, mostly without knowing

there was a thing like leaving, like going.

but something in me kept its petals curled,

some softer self untouched by the world,

waiting in cold the way seeds do

not quite hope, but something close to.

they asked me once, “what are you, really?”

I said both and neither, I’ll tell when I’m ready.

the moon never answers to anyone,

yet she still pulls the tide when her work is done.

I have been high as light through cathedral glass,

I have been silt at the bottom, a motionless mass,

and in between, this trembling thing

that has no name yet almost can sing.

so let me be lavender, dusk in the air,

the hour that lingers between here and there, not a side, not a shore, not something to choose,

but the water itself, with nothing to lose.

a bloom so late the garden moved on,

petals still opening after the dawn,

and if I am anything, let me be this

a quiet defiance the dark can’t dismiss.

the way night stretches but never devours,

the way shadow makes room for unnamed hours,

not ending, not leaving, never torn apart

just becoming the sky I was from the start.

I learned the language of almost and near,

of shapes that flicker but never stay clear,

a body like weather, a voice like a seam

between what I live and what I can dream.

they wanted edges, something defined,

a line they could trace, a fixed state of mind,

but I am the blur where the boundaries may slip,

the salt on the air, the tide’s quiet grip.

I have been silence that swallowed its sound,

I have been echo that never touched ground, both the question and what it avoids,

both the fullness and all of the voids.

There’s a freedom in not being held into place,

in not having to justify your shape or your face,

in letting the self be a shifting art

a map that redraws every time it starts.

so if I arrive, it won’t be as one

not fixed like stone, not finished, not done,

but a constant unfolding, a soft release

not finding a name, but a kind of peace.