poetry

82

the hollowing:

i wake up drowning in silence,
the weight of nothing pressing harder
than any hand could.
the air is thick with the echoes of voices
that used to feel like home,
but now they are ghosts,
whispers of a past where i was still whole.

i want to reach out,
but my hands are too heavy,
my voice too thin,
and the thought of needing someone
feels like a crime i cant bear to commit.
they dont feel like friends anymore.
just names on a screen im too afraid to type.

the void is growing again.
it gnaws at my ribs,
demands more, more, more—
but nothing fills it.
not food, not sleep,
not the sting of self-inflicted pain,
not the slow decay of my body in a bed
that feels more like a coffin each day.

i know where this road leads.
ive walked it before.
the whispers will turn to screams,
the urges will sharpen their teeth,
and i will be nothing but an echo
of the person i once was,
lost in the hunger of a monster
i can never satisfy.

and all i will want—
all i will beg for—
is to feel nothing at all.

so i become a ghost in my own skin,
a shadow that lingers but never quite lives.
the mirror holds a strangers stare—
empty eyes, a vacant soul,
a body that moves only because it must.

i try to fill the void with anything,
with everything.
music so loud it drowns my thoughts,
food i cant taste, drinks that burn,
words that mean nothing, hands that feel even less.
but it only grows hungrier.
it doesnt work the way people do—
the more i give, the more it takes.
until i am nothing.
until i forget who i was before this aching silence.

i start to disappear.
stop speaking, stop eating, stop sleeping,
stop existing in any way that matters.
i just lie here, staring at a ceiling
that has seen too much,
that listens in quiet pity
as i dissolve into the sheets.

then the thoughts come—
whispering at first, then screaming.
one cut is okay. one burn is okay.
just a little, just enough to let go.
as long as i control it, its okay.
even though its not. even though it never is.

but once i start, i cant stop.
the blood, the bruises, the breaking—
all in search of something, anything,
to remind me that I am real.
that i still exist outside this aching,
outside this hunger,
outside this endless, hollowing void.

but it never helps. it never saves me.
i know where this road ends.
ive seen it before, felt its pull.
and i know soon, the only thing i will want,
the only thing i will beg for—
is the bliss of feeling nothing at all