The hollow in my chest keeps counting Silent gears turning under the floor Every step repeats the last one’s echo A circle carved into the marrow’s core I trace the outline of a doorway But the frame dissolves when I get near Every shift would break the sleepers And I can’t tell if it would end the fear So I breathe inside the static Where the days fold into one If I tear the pattern open Would it free me — or undo everyone I hold in place The weight of unspoken futures lingers Like a pulse beneath the skin of time If I move, the lattice fractures If I stay, I calcify inside the rhyme I feel the tremor of a question Buried deep beneath the noise Change could burn the fragile balance Or reveal the shape behind the void So I breathe inside the static Where the days fold into one If I tear the pattern open Would it free me — or undo everyone I hold in place A thousand paths collapse to zero A single thread holds up the sky If I pull, the world might shatter If I don’t, I slowly disappear inside In the hum of the unbroken cycle I wait for a sign that never comes Maybe the truth is motionless Maybe the exit is becoming numb
