The weight of almost

I am not dying.

I am just afraid of living

with this radio in my chest

tuned to a station

no one else seems to hear.

It plays the sound of a tree I haven't sat under yet.

It hums the light of a star I might have been

before I was this.

They tell me: Be grateful. Obey. The day is a gift.

And I try.

I hold the day in my hands like water.

But my hands were made with cracks,

and the longing leaks through.

I have learned the difference between

wanting to leave

and wanting to arrive.

I am not looking for the door out.

I am looking for the room

where my soul stops pressing against the walls.

Sometimes I think if I just gave in—

let a wrong love fill the space,

let a crush become a cage—

the noise would stop.

But I know the noise is not the enemy.

The silence would be worse.

The silence of being seen

but not witnessed.

So I stay here.

In the Almost.

Between the woman I am

and the one I keep dreaming.

The weight in my chest is not a sickness.

You told me it is an engine.

I am trying to believe you.

I am trying to let it hum

without calling it anxiety.

Without calling it broken.

Maybe the longing is the prayer.

Maybe the ache is the map.

Maybe waiting is not empty—

it is the only way to make room

for something that matches the size

of this radio signal,

this hidden weight,

this star I carry

under my very human skin.

I am not dying.

I am just afraid of living

a life too small

for the love I came here to give.

And maybe that fear

is the most alive thing about me.