It begins quietly—
a settling in the chest,
like dusk deciding to stay.
At first, it is only shadow
tugging at the corners of the ribs,
an invisible stone pressed just behind the heart.
You tell yourself it is air,
a trick of tired lungs.
But the air thickens.
The stone grows teeth.
You carry it everywhere—
through doorways, through dreams,
its gravity bending even your voice.
People speak,
their words float past like lanterns,
and you watch them rise,
knowing yours would not.
The light in the room forgets your name.
The body remembers only downward.
Every thought folds in on itself,
creasing the mind into smaller and smaller rooms
where even silence feels crowded.
You learn the language of heaviness—
how to breathe through a stone,
how to make peace with sinking.
And still,
some small pulse remains,
a heartbeat pressed flat beneath the dark,
murmuring—not hope,
but the simple refusal
to vanish completely.
