Bleeding Out

I’m bleeding out

And the wound is a doorway

A thin

Furious crack

Where everything I’ve held back

Finally claws its way through

It isn’t blood that spills

But the molten ache of years

The prayers I swallowed whole

The names I carried like stones

In the lining of my chest

I’m bleeding out

In the raw hush before dawn

Where the air tastes metallic

With all the truths I never said

And the dark leans in

Like it’s hungry for confession

Every drop that falls

Is a memory sharpened to a blade

A tenderness turned feral

A hope that refused to die

Even when I begged it to

And still

Through the rupture

Through the trembling ruin of me

Something fierce keeps rising

A light with teeth

A fire that refuses to be quiet

So if you see me dimming

Don’t mistake it for defeat

This is the breaking open

The holy violence of becoming

The moment the soul tears its old skin

And steps out burning

And if I’m bleeding out tonight

It’s only because the truth

Finally demanded a body

And I was the only one

Who could bear it