There is a moth in my soul, but he no longer breathes. Once, he fluttered through me, his wings delicate as whispers, woven from light. He lived off the faint glow within my chest, the warmth of what once felt like joy. He fed on the fragile remnants of laughter, the faint stirrings of hope, the soft hum of a quiet belonging. He was restless, always searching, but he was alive; alive in the way the light flickers in moments of fleeting warmth. Now, his wings are shredded, his body brittle, his glow nothing but a ghost, fading into darkness. I feel him gasp, the air too thick to breathe, and in the deep hollow of my ribs, he struggles against the shadows, weak, broken, his wings failing against the prison of my decaying soul.
He cannot escape. There is no escape. I have swallowed too much darkness, too much grief, and it has seeped into every crevice of me, thick and suffocating. The blackness clings to my marrow, and it drips down the corridors of my mind, cold and viscous, staining everything it touches. The moth writhes in agony, choking on the tar of my sorrow, his light flickering, sputtering, dying, until there is nothing left but a feeble twitch, and then stillness. The thing inside me that once reached for the light is gone, consumed by the void. His husk remains, lodged somewhere deep within me, a lifeless remnant that serves only as a reminder of what once was. And I wonder, as the darkness rises and the walls close in, if I too will follow—if my soul, like his, will finally wither, unable to bear the weight of this endless void. The silence presses down on me, heavier now, and I feel the suffocating grip of it tightening, unbearable, crushing. The moth is gone. The light is gone. All that remains is the hunger, the pull toward the void, the relentless craving for escape. My body feels like a prison, my mind an endless pit. The darkness whispers in my ears, urging me to surrender, to follow where it leads. It promises peace, an end to the ache, an end to this endless struggle. I feel it—deep within me, the knowing - that one day, I will surrender. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But one day, I know the voices will be too loud to ignore, and they will claim my soul. It is not death I wish for, but peace from the things plaguing my mind.