When I go quiet

Maybe I'm not strong I'm just the scraps of that kid Who learned this all from the nothing left behind Shaped whatever's left around the hollow I hold you like stolen air Proof this body ever lived at all When I go quiet Don't think I'm pulling away I'm right here drowning in front of you Never shown how to pull myself back up If I slip away before this need does My final air will claw its way to you Even all that's left inside Goes deeper than the ground ever could Some days the weight presses thicker Sits heavy in every weak spot I still own I built my whole self around that absence Now it's the only thing that feels like mine When I go quiet Don't think I'm pulling away I'm right here drowning in front of you Never shown how to pull myself back up If I slip away before this need does My final air will claw its way to you Even all that's left inside Goes deeper than the ground ever could Yeah this shell might collapse way before the pressure ever eases up Built my whole existence from the crater that was left when the warmth got sucked Now the crater runs the program, I'm just a tenant stuck paying rent in my own skull Every morning I'm negotiating with the nothing trying to swallow me whole I smile through the flood, water rising past my collar while you're standing right close You think I'm distant? Nah I'm fully submerged doing backstrokes in the undertow Never learned the moves to save myself, treading silence till my lungs explode This ache got me custom tailored, wearing it like second skin I can't outgrow Some days it whispers quiet, other days it screams and tightens up the noose I built my whole shape from missing pieces, now I'm trapped inside the negative space I choose If the wiring shorts out early, if the fuse blows before the noise disappears Know the final signal firing will be aimed directly at you through the atmosphere Crawling on my last reserves, fingernails scraping concrete till they split Still dragging this carcass forward with whatever scraps of will I got left in this No white flag, no surrender, this wreck refuses to stay down for the count Even if every circuit fails me, one last impulse keeps pointing in your direction now I'm the kid who learned attachment from the outline where the feeling used to sit Now that outline owns the real estate and charges interest on every single bit If I flatline in this quiet war, if the battery dies right mid-sentence Understand the very last transmission's still locked on your coordinates with no repentance Thirty seconds of consciousness left, I'm spending every one reaching through the dark This need don't die easy, it fights dirty, leaves its mark on my every thought But even when the body quits the post, the signal keeps broadcasting your location Deeper than six feet, stronger than gravity, more permanent than stone or time could ever be When I go quiet Don't think I'm pulling away I'm right here drowning in front of you Never shown how to pull myself back up If I slip away before this need does My final air will claw its way to you Even all that's left inside Goes deeper than the ground ever could Deeper than the ground Still reaching out for you