At 3 AM, I am the room

notes from the edge of sleep

One hand cradles me,

thumbs resting in my eye sockets,

mocking comfort,

like he’s smoothing a mask that’s started to slip.

My breath—

slow.

Not air but wet concrete,

dragging down my lungs,

until each gasp is a coffin nail.

I hear him before I see him.

Cartilage detaching with a wet pop,

a lullaby of limbs folding wrong,

unfolding worse.

He doesn’t walk, he pours.

Claws first.

Dragging shadows like veins across the floor.

He does not ask questions.

He knows them.

He grins,

and I feel it stretch behind my eyes,

my own smile widening without permission.

He peers inside, searching.

Cataloging.

And then,

he enters,

claws first, through my eyes,

limbs next, pressing into my lungs,

teeth through my stomach, out my back.

My spine arches, cracks—and he whispers,

“You’re softer than last time.”

I feel myself splitting along the gum line,

a puppet with too many hands inside.

He wears my skin

like it’s always belonged to him.

Walks around inside me.

Leaves fingerprints on my lungs.

Smiles behind my face as if testing the fit.

I can’t scream—

my throat is a locked door,

and he’s the key melting through the hinges.

Each night,

he peels a little more of me away,

folds it like laundry,

stacks it in the ribcage.

Neat. Patient.

I wake up wrong.

eyes wide, throat sealed.

Too much shadow in the joints.

Too much silence between heartbeats.

Something else blinking behind my eyes.

My body won’t answer me,

not yet,

and i wonder:

what if I’m the cage, not the prisoner

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