i walk through a hollow carved by years i cannot name but feel in every breath— empty, consumed, a void not filled but expanding. and yet— a presence not loud, but whole. kindness that does not shout, it sings softly through the heavy dark, a candle in the fog. it drive the darkness back— the vast, hungering silence. but the whispers still come. they curl like smoke around my ribs, echoes of wounds left open by hands that once promised love, then bled me dry. thirteen years— a debt unpaid, marked by crimson spider lilies blooming like screams in a field of graves. the past holds me, its thorns familiar— twisted vines i once wore as armor. i know them. they know me. they pull. they promise: you are nothing but shadow. you are rot and sin. you are abhorrent and in the hush between heartbeats, i wear their words like a second skin. i embrace the dark, let it cradle me in its cold. i crave winter’s kiss, the long, eternal night that does not ask, only takes. but then— moonlight. it touches me — gently, without fear. and the thorns recoil. even in my descent, it watches. it waits. i long for the blossom. for warmth that does not burn. for light that does not blind. i want to believe i can bloom without bleeding. but my own self, my inner abhorrence, fights. it remembers the promises i made in the dark, the ones i wear like chains. it wants me to fade. it wants the stillness frost, where nothing blooms and sorrow sleeps. so i say this, in the breath between night and dawn— please, don’t let me go. where the moonlight kisses me, where darkness ebbs and morning stirs, i am still here. not vanished. not lost. not a husk. i am seen. i am waiting— not yet in bloom, but still reaching toward the light.