The Room Where I Stay

I am the clock that ticks too slow, counting the beats of a death I owe. A puppet frayed by hands unseen, dancing to hymns of "could have been." I scratch at walls I cannot climb, a prisoner of this pantomime. The chains aren’t steel—they’re made of doubt, a hollow law I can’t live without. I beg for hands I push away, too ruined to trust, too lost to stay. "Save me," I whisper, but my lips are sewn, a plea that withers, choked, alone. A mirror laughs where my face should be, "Nothing survives here. Not even me." I trace the cracks inside my chest, a map of failures, none confessed. I rot in a room, the fragments shatter, reaching far enough to matter, just another ghost, just more empty chatter. The only door I’ve ever known swings shut the moment I’m alone. I am the final page left unturned, the lesson screamed but never learned. No more fighting, no more cries— just the dark where hope once died. The clock hands rust; the world moves on. I stay, but I’m already gone.