Page 17 of Creeping Lily
I don’t believe her. But the part of me that wants to stop drowning listens anyway.
On the drive home, I lean my head against the window and watch the world blur past. It’s too bright. Too loud. But for the first time in almost a year, I feel something that isn’t just grief or guilt.
It’s small.
It’s fragile.
But it’s there.
And maybe—just maybe—it’s enough to make me come back again next week.
THE PRESENT
The present is a storm that drowns you,
yet still you breathe,
clawing your way upward
through the flood of your own despair.
Your soul pleads for silence,
for surrender,
but you answer with motion,
with breath,
with the stubborn poetry of survival.
Forward is not hope—it is defiance.
A vow to exist
even when existence feels like ruin.
9
TITAN
Half of me is dead.
It’s the half that once carried my heart — the part built for feeling, for love, for the ache that makes you human.
Now that side is hollow. A cavern inside my chest where the wind howls but nothing answers.
I don’t feel anymore. Not joy, not rage, not sorrow. Just the numbing chill that’s spread like frost through my veins, sealing off anything alive in me. A shield, maybe. Or a curse.
I strip off my shirt and face the mirror.
The scar starts at my breastbone, slicing across my ribs before curling around to my back — a warped brand of thick, leathery skin. It’s ugly. It’s permanent. It’s mine.
My fingertips skim it, and the nerves scream — a thousand phantom needles dancing under the surface. Heat flares, sharp and cruel, yet still I feel… nothing real. No pain. No relief.
I grunt and drag a black T-shirt over my head. It falls loose to my waist, brushing the top of my fatigues.
The man in the glass doesn’t feel familiar. Hollow eyes. Skinweathered by too many nights staring into darkness. A jaw set like stone. I smooth a hand over my scalp — hair cropped short, bristling against my palm. Feels like touching a stranger.
