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.

Next
Next

The Leaving Hour