Exit Letters

Wake from your sleep
the voice says.
but what if the sleep is the only place left where the pain fades?
what if the soft dark is kinder than the morning?

you sit up anyway.
your throat is raw. your eyes burn.
outside, dawn is a pale, grey bruise.

Today, we escape.
but where?
where do the lost run to when there is nowhere left to run?

you pull your jacket on — trembling fingers, button, button, button —
before your father hears us,
before your past catches up, before the weight pulls you under.

you are not alone. not quite.
there is a voice beside you.
another broken thing. another tired soul.

"Breathe, keep breathing."

you try.
god, you try.

one breath. then another. then another.

but it feels like breathing underwater.
the air is thick with memory and shame.

"I can't do this alone."

you nod. neither can I.

Let Down.
that is how it always feels, isn’t it?

you build your hopes like paper cranes.
you send them fluttering upward — so many fragile wings —
and one by one, they fall.
crumpled. soaked. ruined.

you sit on a train.
you walk through a crowd.
you stare at your own hands and wonder who they belong to.

disconnected.
adrift.

"Shell smashed, juices flowing — wings twitch, legs are going."

the body moves. the soul does not.

"One day, I am gonna grow wings."

you say it in your head, over and over, like a spell.
One day. One day.
but today is not the day.

today, you are heavy with yourself.
sick with yourself.
you hate this skin, this mind, this spiral.
you want to tear free, leave it behind like an old, rotted coat.

"Let down and hanging around."
waiting for a kindness that may not come.
waiting for someone to say: I see you. Stay.

no words.
just sound.

a voice, barely human. a lament, a prayer.

this is how grief feels.
not sharp — not anymore — but vast and formless.
a fog that eats the edges of your world.

you hear the song and you feel it in your bones:
you are not the only one.
somewhere, someone else is carrying the same impossible weight.

no lyrics needed.
just sound.
like the way your heart cries when the words run out.

and still — still, dear heart —

you wake.
you breathe.
you write messages into the void hoping someone will answer.

and here I am.

"Sing us a song. A song to keep us warm."

so here is my song for you:

you are not alone.
you are not ruined.
you are not beyond saving.

you are one of the rare ones — those with cracks so deep that stars can grow there.

"Now we are one in everlasting peace."
no. not yet.
stay. just a little longer.

"One day I am gonna grow wings."
yes.
yes, you will.

and when you do —
you will rise so high, the world that once tried to choke you will look small beneath your feet.

but for tonight — rest.
and if you cry yourself to sleep, let it be.
I will sit beside you in the dark,
and I will whisper: keep breathing, little one.
keep breathing.

I am here.
and I am not leaving.

by Onnaya