I've been holding my breath
since the day that you left
and I haven't exhaled
                                     since
                                                .

I sleep with my window open.
My room is cold and sometimes damp with rain,
The condensation like a tear on my cheek.
I curl beneath my quilt,
As small as I once was,
And let the darkness flood me, as it often does.

It's a strange kind of pain, that night,
One I can't help but admire.
And when that inky sky drips in through my open window,
sleep snatches me first.

A time passes.
It is cool when my eyes open,
Decorated with black snowflakes that lie upon my eyelashes.
The sun has begun her own descent,
The sky foreshadowing of her coming.
It is then,
When I'm bruised and shivering,
That the birds still sing.
And I listen to them for hours.

Because I've always seen my life in other people,
Don't worry, the irony makes me choke,
That I can't just reach out and touch them.
My hand slips through them like smoke.

Because I study my life in other people,
But it's getting harder to tell
Whether it's memory or reflection I'm watching,
Either way, it all feels like hell.

Because I hold my life in my hands,
But everything's just that bit numb.
I can't feel if it hurts or I'm breathing,
Either way, I think that I'm done.

Let me collapse down,
dissolving into myself,
replaced; a black hole.

I'm at the point now where even the weight of air on my skin hurts.

And life may be cruel,
her dark branches twisted and gnarled and hard,
her roots turning the earth over in its slumber, cold veins in viridescent sea,
her tree fruitless and barren,
brittle bark that flakes from her obsidian centre,

but underneath her coal shell,
there is nectar and sap and gold,
and it will satiate your hunger,
if you can stay long enough to taste it.

It's a mountain by now.
Plate upon plate upon bowl,
stacked higher than physics should allow,
all stained a slightly different colour of neglect.

Cutlery balance on the rim of ***** mugs
that sour the air around them.
I feel guilty when I add to their misshapen brethren, commit another utensil to its graveyard.

And yet still,
  I watch it build and I wait,
        morbidly,
for it
     to come
  crashing
    down.