The hallway light flickers like it knows my name
Yellow on the crack paint, soft on my shoes
A neighbor laughs through a paper-thin wall
I pause my voice, no, just to let it pass
My keys are cold in the palm of my hand
The door sticks like it always does
I step inside a room that still smells faintly Of last
night's coffee and something I didn't finish saying
I line my thoughts up in careful row
But one keeps leaning into the dark
There's a block in my chest I can't move
around No matter how gentle I try to be
It's not a wall,
it's a quiet kind of pressure Right where your silence settles in me
I don't fight it anymore Try to stand in the space beneath
The blue glow from the street cuts my window in half A bus
slides by like a hell breath I scroll past names that
won't open anymore My thumb knows better now I used to fix
every loose ending Every pause in a conversation Tonight I
let the gap stay open Like crosswalks after midnight Empty
I'm still working
Maybe some doors stay heavy on purpose
So you notice when you keep carrying
There's a block in my chest I can't move
around No matter how soft I speak to myself
It's not a break,
it's a slow kind of gravity Pulling truth out of everything else
I don't run from it now
I just let it take its place
I thought healing was momentum For with motion clean relief
But some moments ask you to stay still Until your body finally agrees
Not every answer sounds like clarity
Some sound like air returning slow
Some sound like learning how to stop pushing When you already know
There's a block in my chest I can't move around
And it's softer than I feared it would be
It's not a wall,
it's the shape of what I kept avoiding
Making room for it in me I don't fix it anymore
I let it teach me how to breathe
Turn off the light
Leave the window open
And let the night finish
But I couldn't