Only the blade - poem 🔞

I wake—
choking.
Air won’t come.
Heart slamming against bone
like it wants out.
The nightmare followed me,
wrapped around my throat,
dripping images I can’t unsee.

Already drowning.
Already breaking.
Chest caving,
hands shaking,
the floor a storm beneath me.
I claw at the dark,
reach for arms
that once promised safety.

Gone.
Vanished.
Like I was never worth keeping.

No warmth, no voice,
no weight beside me.
Only silence.
Only me.
Alone.
Always alone.

Panic screams through my ribs—
tight, searing, endless.
I try the tricks:
count the breaths,
feel the ground,
name five things—
but nothing holds.
Nothing works.
It’s all fire.

And I know what works.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.

The drawer.
The blade.
Its cold kiss
is waiting.
It always waits.

I don’t flinch.
Not anymore.
I welcome it.

One cut.
Then another.
Then deeper.

It sings.
It rips the terror out of me.
It carves a breath back into my lungs.

Hot red spills,
trails down my thigh—
warm, real,
proof that something
still feels.

The pain is perfect.
Punishment.
Relief.
Deserved.

This is my peace.
This is my penance.
This is what I’ve earned.

No arms will come.
No one stayed.
There is no healing.
There is no help.

Only the blade.
Only the blood.
Only the truth—

I bleed
because I exist.
I bleed
because it’s the only thing
that doesn’t lie to me.

And when the tears dry,
when the shaking stops—
there are no arms.
No forgiveness.
No light.

Only this.
Only now.
Only the