Your eyes
are locked doors in a burning house,
still standing—
but everything inside is ash.
No one hears the screams anymore.

They flicker like dying lanterns,
casting truth across the walls.
A glance becomes a funeral.
You look away—
and the whole world forgets to breathe.

Time unspools in red threads—
veins of the clock,
still pulsing long after it stopped.

I loved you like a candle loves
its own ruin.
Wax-kissed. Flame-fed.
Afraid of the dark,
but terrified to burn forever.

Your shadow curls beneath my ribs,
whispering if, if, if
like a broken pendulum.

Each memory
a spark that needles my skin—
not warmth,
just that cruel static ache
of something trying to return
through numbness.

Some nights,
I see your name in the firelight
and can’t remember
if I dreamed you
or lost you.

The bottle sits,
A quiet invitation,
Its glass glinting like a promise
I know it cant keep.
But still, I reach.
I pour.
I drink.

And its not the taste I crave-
Its the silence.
The way the edges blur,
How the sharp corners of my thoughts
Dull into something I can hold
Without bleeding.
For a moment,
I am lighter.
For a moment,
I am not myself.

The hallway stretches out,
Bright and forgiving,
A place where the weight lifts,
Where the air doesn't press so hard
Against my chest.
i walk there
Slow, unsteady steps,
My shadow trailing behind me
Like it knows the truth.

Because the truth is this:
I am always circling the same room,
The same walls,
The same silence that isn't really silent.
But instead full of whispers
That sounds like my own voice.
They tell me I am not enough.
They tell me I am too much.
And they tell me I am both,
And I believe them.

But the door at the end-
That door- it waits.
It always waits.
And when it opens,
The dark room swallows me whole.
Its walls closing in,
Its whispers louder than before.

I thought I had escaped.
I thought I could leave.
But the bottle only leads me back
To the place i was running from,
To the thoughts I drowned
That seems to only rise again.
Stronger, sharper,
Angrier..

And so I drink
Not to forget,
But to pause.
To delay the inevitable return
To the room that knows my name,
The room that knows the sound of my breaking.

I sit there,
The bottle heavy in my hand,
Its weight a comfort and a curse.
I tell myself this is the last time,
But I've told myself that before.
The hallway calls to me,
Its light a cruel trick,
A fleeting kindness
That never stays.

When I'm there again,
I'll sit in its silence,
Waiting for the bottle to call me back,
Knowing it will,
Knowing I will answer.
And the cycle will begin again-
That bright hallway,
That dark room,
the bottle, and then
The breaking.

There is no ending here,
Only the same story,
Told in different words.
Still always the same,
The bottle sits.
I reach.
I pour.
I drink.