sombre

lungwort eulogies

10:10 AM — friday november 5th

the sky, wide and cold, stretches above me like a yawning mouth, swallowing the day. i walk, slowly, my feet pressing into the earth, pulling me down. i wish it would. sink into the dirt, disappear. just fade away. i’m tired. tired in my bones, tired in my skin. the tiredness wraps around my chest, tightens like a hand. my breath catches. i keep walking. forward, though the road never seems to end.

the air is thick, sticky, clinging to me, pressing in close. it feels like the world is too heavy today, like it’s pressing down on my shoulders, making me small, smaller still. i try to stretch my neck, breathe deep, but the weight stays. i wonder if i could peel my skin away, let the wind touch my raw insides, let the air slip between the cracks in my bones, maybe that would help, maybe it would make me lighter.

but no. i stay in my skin. keep walking. no escape. no way out.

there’s a hum in my head, constant, like static, like the sound of a thousand voices whispering but not saying anything. just noise, just always there. it drowns out the sound of the trees, the wind, the birds. i want silence. real silence. the kind that swallows you whole, that pulls you under until you forget you’re even there. but the hum won’t stop.

i want to stop. i want to stop being. to slip away, into nothing. to close my eyes and let everything fade. i want to float, to dissolve. to not feel this weight, this ache, this endless turning of time and days and thoughts. i want to be blank, to be empty, to be nothing but air, light, not even real.

but i’m here. stuck in my body, my skin. it hurts to be here, hurts in a way that doesn’t have a name, hurts in a way that isn’t sharp, but slow, dragging, always there. i want to pull it off, shed it like old clothes, like something i never needed in the first place.

but i can’t. so i walk. i breathe. i feel the weight of the sky pressing down, and i keep going. always going, never going anywhere.

and maybe that’s the worst part. there’s nowhere to go. nowhere to escape to.