A cry tears in her throat, ripped, as there’s this crest—this shaking, distant pleasure, some peak reached after hours—body finally crashing. Somewhere, she comes, but it means less than nothing.
The silence is spreading, and her body is drowning, and she is left with nothing.
Is nothing.
There’s nothing left to give.
She’s never felt like less of a person.
The sudden quiet, a choke of silence.
It takes a name, fractures.
Space—between notes in music, between an inhale and an exhale. Spreading color across a canvas, place of nonexistence.
Silence swallows what might have lived in this body.
In that emptiness, something blooms—a suffering that can’t—can’t—
There’d been more, once.
Loved—perfectly—someone, somewhere.
Sounds that carried definition. Shape, meaning: words.
Li! Over here, sunshine.Rush of sunlight beyond fog, a bridge over a bay, green headlands by the ocean, parrots in the sky. Happiness so keen it feels like loss—reaching for it, but it’s gone.
Distant, faint.
Lili, honey, can you help me with dinner?Redwoods, black sand, rough fleece, alone in the woods, a chill in the air, forest trails, wanting only to disappear.
Hey, it’s Lili, right?Wooden seats, used textbooks, lecture hall, a girl with bright red hair. A golden boy who feels safe; a girl who felt like a sister.
No, not that. Not quite, not there.
Lili.
Oh.
Lili.
A closer voice, calling her back. Somewhere, sometime.
Someone.
Familiar shapes solidify like bedroom furniture at dawn.
Blinking, seeing nothing. Slow, resolving little.
A name, again.
It could mean something.
Lili.
Warmth, touching skin: pressing soft warmth—cloth—to skin.
“Lili, please...”
