tomorrow, i'll be an apology

you forgot to breathe, so I devoured all of the oxygen.

May 08, 2026

Sometimes, I am an ocean. A churning sea. A depthless pit. A wild, fathomless ecosystem. Teeming with the cold, eternal circle of life, but warm enough at my edges, that you might dare to dip a toe and try me, tempt me.

Sometimes I am a song. Undulating and indeterminate. My tune is guttural and evocative. My melody precise and unpredictable. My lyrics forgettable, but my harmony haunting.

Are you desperate to hum my notes?

Do pieces of me linger in your mind long after I’ve faded away?

Sometimes I am a mite, swirling at the taste of your exhale, glittering in the sunlight. As if I were more than death and decay, dancing hopelessly at the mercy of unrelenting gravity, pulling me ever closer to sure extinction.

To some, I am a star shining bright in memoriam. Too far. Already gone. Beauty in the eye of the beholder who lives and dies, bewildered by the echo of my perilous shadow.

Today I am a flame. My insatiable hunger careening recklessly towards all you’ve taken for granted. You forgot to breathe, so I devoured all of the oxygen. Never looking back, but then again, direction is futile to the all-encompassing.

A blight.

A blinding light.

Blind.

And unkind.

Tomorrow, I’ll be an apology. An empty word. An unfulfilled wish. A shattered promise. An open wound, singed and scorched. Sick with grief and frenzied with regret, I’ll walk on the ashes of all that I once loved, incinerated by disillusionment and temper.

and in my isolation, I’ll wonder

if it was

really

all for nothing

and if

the incomprehensibility

of nothingness

of nonbeing

of nonexistance

is all of the meaning

I ever needed.

-June