Half Awake

Half awake, half asleep, I lie in the dark and feel the room settle around the place where something used to live.

It isn’t dramatic. It isn’t loud. It isn't kind. It isn't weak

It’s the kind of death that happens quietly, the kind that doesn’t announce itself, the kind you only notice because the air stops remembering how to move. the kind that swallows you whole.

There’s a hollow beside me, just the faint depression of something that never stayed long enough to leave a name. something taken so soon there was no chance for help.

Half awake, half asleep, I keep watch over the emptiness. I wait for the void to swallow me, but it never does, it just keeps taking everyone I love instead while laughing in my face.

One eye open, one eye closed, as if I’m guarding a body that never belonged to me, as if I’m waiting for a pulse that was never promised. A love promised to withstand anything, only to be ended by the tip of a needle.

I sift through every awkward word, every foolish moment, laying them out like bones on a cold table, trying to guess what creature they once belonged to, what version of me died without warning.

None of it mattered. Not to you. Not to the world. Not even to your ghost. not even the needle in your arm.

And still, I lie here in this half-life, half awake, half asleep, breathing the thin air of a room that forgot how to hold me, mourning the outline of a presence that never arrived, grieving the shape of a future that never learned how to be born.