Breathe Me

Breathe me.

Don’t hand me off to the dark — it’ll eat me whole.

Old. Cold. Needy.

I won’t clutch at control; I want a comrade who admits the hollow is unfillable.

I don’t want control — I want a friend.

A friend who can’t fix the hole.

Call it crude, call it ordinary,

call it generic, call it unoriginal —

breathe out, count down, go low — whatever.

It still hurts.

Breathe out.

It doesn’t have to be original to be true.

It’s mine.

I am small, a vessel trembling with want,

a flicker in the wind, a shadow that leans.

I am fragile, and I am raw,

and I ask nothing more than presence,

someone to sit with the ache,

someone to watch the hollow pulse

and not run.

I am the echo of every unspoken word,

the quiet scream beneath laughter,

the soft collapse of a soul tired of holding.

Take me as I am,

or let me breathe alone;