There’s a quiet in my bones
that I don’t recognize.
A weight beneath my skin
pulls me into a stillness I can’t fight.

Breath—
once a thing I never thought about,
now rattles like wind in empty rooms.
Each inhale feels like it’s borrowed
from some stranger’s lungs.

My hands don’t answer like they used to,
fingers thick with slowness,
as though the world is slipping
out of their grasp.
I reach for the days I’ve known,
but time falls between the gaps.

The mirror shows a face I’m losing—
cheeks hollowing,
eyes dimming,
but it’s the fear
that’s eating me faster than anything else.

Will I go quietly?
Or will the dark drag me screaming?
The questions swell,
spiral inside me like a storm
I can’t outrun.

And the worst of it is the waiting—
the long, cruel patience of this decay.
How the minutes tick slow,
each one whispering what I don’t want to hear:
You’re not in control anymore.

I’ve never feared the unknown this way.
It’s not the dying,
it’s the not-knowing-how.
Will it hurt,
or will I just slip away,
like a sigh into the night,
barely remembered by the wind?

And in the silence that follows,
I wonder—
when the last spark flickers out,
will there be peace?
Or just an endless falling
into the dark?

For now, I’m still here,
with this body that betrays me.
For now,
I wait.