The paper yellowed beneath my fingers—

The paper yellowed beneath my fingers—

faint ink smudged from years and careless thumbs.

"Keep breathing when the room feels too heavy,"

somebody wrote, like a hand through fog.

I held that scrawl like a faded lifeline,

threadbare but strong against the noise.

No one else saw it—just me and the crease

where hope had been scribbled in the margin.

It didn’t fix the cracks or the quiet nights,

but it stopped me from falling once,

and that was enough.