2 A.M

It's just too much A person stands alone in a small kitchen after midnight The house quiet Coffee cold Shoulders heavy from pretending all day The city outside keeps moving But inside Everything has stopped The phone lights up and then goes dark again No message No rescue Just the hum of the refrigerator and the ache in the chest They press a hand to their mouth Trying to keep the crack in their breathing hidden Trying to look like someone who knows how to stay Memories spill out in flashes of fluorescent light Every mistake, every goodbye, every unfinished apology The room feels too small for all this grief Too bright for the truth And the tears come finally Not like rain But like a flood breaking through a door They sit on the floor with the lights still on Counting all the ways the night can swallow a name The clock keeps dragging its hands across the wall Slow and merciless And every answer they have Sounds like a lie Wrapped in a whisper Somewhere beyond the window a siren fades to nothing And the air in the room feels thinner than before They reach for the edge of the counter Then let go Then reach again As if the body itself has forgotten How to be held together It is so hard It is so hard It is so hard to be alive It is so hard It is so hard It is so hard to be alive Heartbeat drums grow louder Organ enters like a small prayer The voice cracks on the highest note but does not collapse It is so hard to be alive It is so hard to be alive No one says the words out loud But the silence does And in that silence They fold in half Shaking Breathing Holding on by a thread Still here Still here Still here Then the sob breaks open Raw and sudden Like a door kicked from its frame All the fear spills out All at once And for a moment There is nothing left to hide The music lowers again Choir fades The person is still tired but no longer completely alone It is so hard It is so hard It is so hard to be alive