Lanthanium

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The forecast says snow. But when I look outside, there’s nothing. No soft white flakes, no gentle hush of winter— just the hollow sky, empty like me. The only place it snows is inside me- Cold spreads through me, deeper than the marrow, wrapping around my ribs, pressing, suffocating. Cold settles in my chest, heavy, relentless. My family calls, voices sharp, pulling me back— back towards a home that never felt like home, back to a place where love had conditions, had walls where I was only enough if I obeyed. Come back," they say. As if I could. As if I haven’t already crossed a line I can never return from. Too tired I can’t eat. I can’t move. The only thing that touches my lips is ice chips — melting, fleeting, disappearing just like the girl they think I still am. "Come back," they say. But I can’t. I’m not their little girl anymore. That girl died somewhere between the surgeries they never knew about.

I retrieve this

I'm too tired of dishonesty I can't stand there Pretending it doesn't break me

The flu hit, as if I wasn’t already breaking. As if my exhaustion, and the crushing emptiness weren’t enough. And the work… it never stops. Piles of it, suffocating me like everything else. I can’t breathe. I can’t rest. I can’t stop. And I don’t know how much more of me is left to give.

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Indian rock

In the jasmine I shall die

my head won’t shut up. I’m starving, but food feels like poison. I’m drowning, but there’s no shore in sight. Just the weight, the noise, and me struggling to keep going when all I want is to stop.

My mouth is dry and sore, my tonsils hurt, my skin feels like it’s on fire, I’m nauseous from literally everything, and even my eyes have joined the rebellion.

I haven’t really eaten in a week, just surviving on pineapple and a protein shake every other day.

I thrive on exhaustion.

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