the sick

i grew up learning how to flinch before i learned how to breathe. the walls in that house knew my name better than anyone did. and on nights i can’t sleep, sometimes i think they loved me more too. remembering that when i pressed my face against them, i was just trying to disappear.

grief is strange when it starts before the dying. you’ve been gone for years, but the version of you i needed - it never lived long enough to leave a body behind. i mourn a ghost of a ghost, a woman i kept trying to resurrect. i did it in the way i spoke, in the way i made myself smaller, in the way i learned to take blame like communion.

everyone talks about closure - like it’s a door you can shut…. but mine was never installed. i just keep standing in the frame, getting hit by every storm that wanders past. i keep telling myself it’s fine, it’s familiar - it’s just what i grew up with.

some nights i talk to the ceiling like she’s up there somewhere - but all i ever get back is the sound of my own breathing. it’s never enough to make me feel like i’m not still that kid, waiting for a mother who never arrived. i miss her even still.