it's okay

the ache loomed deep in her heart as she curled tighter, drawing in the silence of the room and the quasi-darkness that only the city could give her. her shame built like a deluge, beating upon the shell of her ribcage as she gasped and struggled to break through the sobs, as her breath turned into a suppressed scream. this is where she lay, her muscles contracted, tense, her eyelids clenched against the beating of the night. the coldness invaded her, the ache wrapped its dead arms around her and squeezed. she gasped again, fighting. she was losing. she was drowning in the flood. the shame parted her lips mid-sob and slid silently down her throat, etching words like fire along the soft tissues with a burning pen – “there is no Spring. there are no more Chances left.” the shame reached her lungs, it reached with its long fingers like blazing tendrils, seeking, finding, devouring the last of her innocence in a flood of fiery despair. she unclenched, unwound, unbent in the last of her gasps, in the last of all things for her. she died the wounded death, and the city lights consumed her body, like soil consumes the dead of the fields.

if i had been in a state to write it, this is what i would have wrote one night, a few weeks ago. this is what it felt like. i'm writing it now and saying goodbye to it. i think it's good sometimes, to let the world know that you are imperfect.

but i know i didn't die any kind of soul-death that night. there is a Spring, and another Chance.