1st step.
2nd.
3rd—
...pause.
2 steps back.
reset.
again.
again.

How does it end?

I ask
like I haven’t already
broken the answer
in my hands
a hundred times.

One moment,
I swear I see the path—
lit, clear,
like maybe I was meant for more.
The next,
I’m sinking into myself,
slow,
silent,
like grief with no name.

Hope is a ghost
I keep chasing in my sleep.
She never stays.
Not for me.

I smile like it means something.
Breathe like I’m not
falling apart
every second I’m awake.
No one sees
the cracks I carry in my chest.

I call it progress,
this pretending.
But it’s just
a prettier way
to bleed.

How will it turn out?
Maybe it won’t.
Maybe this—
this looping,
this aching—
is the only ending
I’ll ever know.