A room without windows

There is a room I wake in,
though I do not remember sleeping.
Its walls are made of silence,
the kind that presses on the ribs
until breath feels like trespassing.

Time drips here
not in minutes,
but in sighs
that never reach the air.
The clock’s hands do not turn,
but my thoughts do,
circling the drain
like water that never escapes.

I wear a smile that fits wrong,
stitched with trembling thread.
Laughter sounds foreign in my mouth,
as though my voice
belongs to someone else.

Some nights,
I count the ways to disappear,
like beads on a string,
rolling through my fingers,
careful not to drop the last one
the one that means I am gone.

And yet…
there’s a hairline crack in the wall,
too small to notice at first.
Through it,
the faintest thread of light slips in,
not warm enough to heal me,
but enough to remind me
that somewhere,
beyond this room without windows,
the sun still rises,
and so, for now,
so will I.