Seething

The pain bubbles up, rising, rising, rising.

Like water in a pot too small, it boils over,

scalding me from within.

I am the darkest wound of my own existence.

Each heartbeat seems to brew a venom,

dripping through my body,

seeping into every fragile cell,

until even breath falters beneath its weight.

I gasp—

dying not in haste but in the slowest of measures,

as if there were some virtue in stretching out this torment.

And in this languid unravelling I watch:

the world spinning endlessly,

faces blurred with urgency,

gestures slipping from my grasp.

All of it feels strange,

distant,

unreal.

Does death come hand in hand with lightness?

Will the pain at last grow quiet?

Or will it remain when I am gone—

hunting another body to devour?

They once spoke to me of smiles.

Of tender plans, of dreams that lift and carry.

They told me of happiness, of gratitude,

of the gleam that lingers in the corner of an eye.

Yes, they spoke.

And I only ever heard the telling.