Where the Air Thins

The floor is the only thing that holds me completely,

a cold, flat shore for a tide that won’t stop rising.

I am down here in the dark, where the air gets thin,

and my throat forgets how to let the world in.

Each breath is a jagged stone,

a small, sharp struggle to just be—

while the walls watch the panic

pulse through the marrow of me.

I am a person they haven’t learned to see,

just crying in the spaces between their words.

It’s a quiet sort of mourning,

to be misunderstood by everyone I meet.

So I let the tears map the tiles,

salt and shadow and silence,

waiting for the night to turn soft,

waiting for the air to come back to me.