The Suffocation

Tonight, it feels like something has its hands around my throat.
Not enough to kill me; just enough to remind me it could.

There's a pressure sitting in my chest, dense and merciless, like a storm that refuses to break. I can feel every unsaid word clawing at my ribs, begging for a way out, then they die somewhere between my mind and my mouth.

It's a kind of emotional paralysis—
I'm conscious, I'm breathing, I'm alive;
but god, it feels like I'm breathing underwater.

How do you confess a pain that hides from you?
How do you explain a darkness that refuses to be named?

So I sit with it.
this weight, this chokehold;
and it sits with me like an unwanted guest who knows I won't ask it to leave.

Tonight, I don't want to be understood.
I just want this feeling to loosen its grip.
Just long enough for me to remember
what it's like to breathe
without fighting
for air.