The Weight of a Summer Breath

The city is a machine that never sleeps, grinding us down into fine dust. For years, I learned how to be invisible—to hold my breath until the pressure in my chest became a familiar companion. Then there was you,
You didn't ask me to speak; you only asked me to exist beside you. Here, under this artificial rain that tastes of salt and sunlight, the silence between us isn't empty—it is heavy, saturated with everything I have been too terrified to say.
I can feel your gaze tracing the line of my collarbone, a touchless caress that burns hotter than any flame. My heart beats against my ribs like a trapped bird, desperate and frantic, while my face remains a mask of fragile serenity. It is an exquisite torture—this quietude where every drop of water sliding down my skin feels like a confession.
I want to scream into the wind until my lungs empty, but instead, I simply look at you. In that single glance, ten years of loneliness collapse into a singularity. The warmth radiating from your presence is crushing me, breaking through the ice I spent a lifetime freezing over myself.
I am drowning in this summer air, and for the first time in my life, I do not want to be saved.

Editor: Deep Sea