The Middle Ground

The battery’s dead, but the screen is still glowing,
I’m playing the lead while the theater is burning.
I’m hollowed out, empty, with no way of knowing
How many more miles this machine will keep turning.

I’m tired of masks and the scripted "I’m fine,"
Of dragging this weight through a world made of lead.
I’ve reached for the exit, I’ve looked for the sign,
To quiet the echoes inside of my head.

But I fear the threshold — the bridge of the seconds,
The gasp for the air and the finality’s sting.
The biological panic that suddenly beckons,
The terror of "never" and what it might bring.

I’m too weak to pull at the lever of ending,
Too fragile to break what I cannot repair.
So I live in the static, forever pretending,
A ghost in the room, suspended in air.

It’s the cruelest of traps, this paralysis of soul:
Too exhausted to breathe, but too frightened to stop.
To be out of time, yet still out of control,
Still waiting for anchors and shadows to drop.