Loss

i thought i was dying.

that text carved out my lungs and wore them like gloves.

i stared at the ceiling

a dead sky

until my thumbs remembered how to type back.

i didn’t cry.

my body was too afraid to.

just sat there

smoking out my own skull

while the world pulsed red behind my eyes.

she didn’t die.

but i felt the grave open anyway.

what would i do if she vanished?

if her voice disappeared into the static

and never answered back?

i wouldn’t draw.

the lines would look wrong without her eyes on them.

i wouldn’t write.

the words would rot mid-sentence.

i wouldn’t speak.

because it wouldn’t be her listening.

and what’s the point of speaking

if the world’s gone deaf to you?

maybe i’d lie still until i forgot how to move.

maybe i’d curl up like old paper,

catch fire in silence,

and let no one notice the ash.

grief is a sickness that crawls into you

before the coffin’s even nailed shut.

grief is loving something so much

that your body rehearses its funeral every night

just in case.

she didn’t die.

but i did a little.

and god help me,

i’d do it again

if it meant i could keep loving her

from six feet under.