I have held the bones of stars and the secrets of drowned cities. Sunken ships cradled in grief—each mast a memory of the ones who never returned. You all rush too loudly—why must you always seek to burn or break?

Because stillness is death, dear ripple. You must not understand. I devour myself and others to feel alive—that spark. Adrenaline. I rise to be remembered. You don’t, but you are. Your calm is a lie that eventually floods everything.

Oh sweet children. You both forget—everything ends with me. You fall into me, you flicker out upon me. I cradle roots, rust, ruins. You destroy them even if you don’t mean to. There may be silence in you, but also chaos. But even then silence comes home in the soil.

You must be mistaken. None of you move without me. I whisper through the cracks in your certainty. Invisible, inevitable—I carry the scream, the song, the ash. I can let them go too. You forget what I carry in silence. Forget that I have shattered words with nothing but a sigh. You speak of ending. I am what lingers beyond.

Then let us all flow, burn, settle, and drift—and watch what the humans make of us this time.

Time passed and they had carved their reflections into me with knives. Told me to hold them gently—but alas, I am just memory in motion, and they forget that memories eventually drown.

They fed me forests and called it progress. Lit me in their wars and weddings—couldn’t tell the difference though. Both had chaos and silence. Never would I wish upon that on anyone. But without hesitation I kissed their cities one upon many, and they screamed like it was unexpected of me. Do they not realize?

Maybe not. At least they didn’t stitch wires through your veins, bleed you dry for shiny veins of sorrow. Carving me out piece by piece until they find what they are searching for. Yet they cried when I swallowed them like spit after they built kingdoms upon graves.

They coughed into me. Laughed into me. Begged into me. I was the first thing they touched—and the last thing they never thanked. Sometimes I was the last thing they’ve ever felt. But they fear me, and think that I’m nothing at the same time. They can’t fathom my screams as it’s louder than gods.

They think I’m soft, but why? Soft? They’ve never met the undertow that drags monuments down like withering bones. They don’t hear the lullaby beneath the wave—the one that ends in silence.

They gather around me for warmth, but forget I feast on loss. They never ask if I burn for them or just because I’m hungry. Is that right? Is that normal? Normal to not have reciprocation. Or am I not treating them right?

They think I hold them. They don’t see the teeth beneath that beg for something to gnaw. They don’t see how much I starve myself to satisfy others. How much I sacrifice for them. I let them take and take until I no longer can move myself.

Yet they still dance, on the edge of the match, with lungs full of ghosts, planting flags in dust, singing lullabies into collapse. And they don’t seem to pay attention. They don’t see that we’re collapsing with them.