The Grim

It spoke in quiet supreme,

end it here, with absolute.


No one will notice the difference,
between silence and you.
I believed it for a while.


Carried its voice like a second pulse,

a timer counting down
instead of forward.

There were days when the air itself felt hostile,

when breathing was an argument, 
I kept losing.

I stood at the edge,
not always literal,

but close enough,
that gravity
started to sound like an invitation.

Yet still,
something small refused.
Not hope.

Hope is loud, bright, heroic,
I am not.


This was quieter.
A stubborn flicker.

A splinter under the skin of despair.

The simple, irrational refusal,

to let darkness have the last word.

I began there.
Not with meaning,

not with purpose,

but with spite.

You don't get to end me,
You don't get to be right,
So I stayed.

Through nights that stretched with no ending,

through mornings that felt like mistakes,

through the slow,
grinding return of thoughts I didn't trust.

And something shifted...
not all at once,
never cleanly,
but enough.

The edge grew distant,

The voice lost its certainty.

I am still here,

not because the darkness vanished,

but because I learned its language,

I learned to not obey it.

Now when it whispers,
I answer loudly,
this is not the night!