The forest swallowed the sky days ago.

Or maybe that was weeks.

Time here doesn’t tick—it drips.

I eat things that don’t have names.

They writhe.

Sometimes they stare back.

Something is following me.

It doesn’t breathe.

It doesn’t need to.

I tried to hide once—

it laughed, but nothing moved its face.

My fingernails are gone.

I scratched too hard at the earth

trying to dig somewhere safer.

There is no down.

Only more of it.

My voice is gone.

It left when I screamed too long

and nothing answered but the trees,

leaning in like listeners,

hungry for sound.

I don’t sleep.

If I do, it speaks.

Not in words.

In heat behind my eyes.

In dreams I didn’t have.

I should be dead.

I tried.

But it won’t let me.

Something wants me alive.

Not to save.

To watch.