Air Pressure

Grief doesn’t whisper,
it thunders—
a storm inside,
relentless,
pushing, pressing,
pounding my chest
until I can't catch my breath.
I don’t know how to hold it,
how to stop it from spilling
into everything.

I write to catch the pieces,
to stop them from scattering,
to squeeze out their sound—
but they slip,
they slip,
slide away,
and I—I—
I can’t—
I can’t—

Each word
feels too heavy,
but if I stop,
if I stop,
it will drown me,
flood the room
with all the things
I can’t say,
and I don’t know if I’ll survive
the stillness after.

I want to stop
but the words push,
they pulse,
they pound,
pushing past my hands,
forcing into the space
where the quiet used to lie—
and in that space,
I find the ache
I couldn’t hold
before.

It doesn’t heal.
It just spills—
words tumbling, tumbling,
too fast,
too thick to follow,
and I’m still trying to keep them,
still trying to keep them
from breaking me.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be enough
to carry all this weight—
both the silence and the sorrow.

I write to make it leave.
But it doesn’t leave,
it lingers,
settles—
like dust that isn’t swept away,
just…
stays.

But the words—
the words are all I have.
They are all that let me—
breathe
through
it