Slip Me Into Nothing
I. ember
Some nights,
I hold a match between my teeth
just to feel something
burning that close.
I don’t light it.
But I want to.
God, I want to.
The world is a pyre dressed as sunrise —
glorious, and always ending something.
They call it warmth.
I call it warning.
There’s smoke in my chest
not from cigarettes.
Rather the friction
of existing
too loudly.
I am kindling.
I am struck flint.
I am the fever of “what if”
that sets my ribs alight
and calls it passion.
And yet—
no matter how long I burn,
no one comes
to warm their hands.
II. glacier
Then the days
when I am a cathedral of ice,
dripping prayer into an indifferent sea.
I blink slower.
Speak in lowercase.
Move,
apologising for the space I take.
Water doesn’t crash in here.
It creeps.
It climbs my throat
and curls behind my teeth,
shushing me
into stillness.
I wear numbness like silk.
It fits better than hope.
No blaze,
no smoke,
no need to run.
Just frost blooming on the edges of my want.
The soft, exquisite quiet
of not having to try.
III. romance
They make death into poetry,
and I understand why.
It doesn’t scream.
Doesn’t demand.
It lets you
rest.
Not sleep.
Not pause.
But rest.
The kind that doesn’t ask you to earn it.
People tell me
I’m too bright to go out.
But stars die
more beautifully
than they live.
They collapse inward,
folding light into shadow,
and the universe watches in awe
instead of grief.
What if I am already fading
and it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever done.
IV. nothing
Nothing is not cruel.
It does not ask you to get better.
It does not remind you to take your pills.
It does not measure your worth
by productivity
or prettiness
or proof.
It simply opens its arms
and says:
“come as you are.”
I wonder—
if I became a whisper,
would I still echo?
If I left this room,
would the walls miss me?
Would anyone?
Or would it be
just another log added to the fire
or
ice melting unnoticed
into the sea?
V. epilogue
Tonight…
I am wildfire with a frozen core.
My fingers burn.
My spine shivers.
My heart is a pendulum
between two dooms.
I don’t know if I want to live.
I just know I don’t want
to feel
like this.
And maybe that’s not poetry.
Maybe that’s not brave.
But it is real.
So I write it down
instead of lighting the match
or stepping into the sea.
I name the nothing.
I make it a verse.
And for one more night—
that’s enough.