Living on Borrowed Breaths

I woke in the night with emptiness in my chest,
threatening to jump out of my skin.
Almost frightening how lonely I felt.

My heart raced. Tears burned.
Every breath borrowed, never mine.

Unbidden, the weight of it all,
the weight of nothing at all,
pulled me under.

I drowned in a dream that wasn’t mine to dream.
Choked on words that weren’t mine to hear.

I’m nothing.
Repeating over and over, until I almost believed it.

Always close. Just out of reach.
Never enough to settle into presence.

What if I am a shadow in the dark?
What if the sleepless moments
are the only time I truly exist?

I turned to you.
But you weren’t there.
You never are.

I confess my nothingness to the night.
And I surrender.