I step outside

I step outside

and the world is swallowed.

Streetlights bleed

into soft, trembling halos—

ghosts in a thick soup.

Footsteps vanish beneath a gray weight,

words swallowed before they form.

The city’s edges blur,

a slow dissolve,

a silence too loud to break.

The damp air clings,

a gray skin over everything,

wrapping the night

in something unsaid,

something waiting

just beyond sight.

I stand still

in the hush,

between what’s hidden

and what I can’t quite name.