I don’t tell them what I’m feeling.
I just slow down,
let the silence do the explaining.
It’s safer that way.
Below the surface,
I can breathe without showing it.

People say they want truth.
They don’t.
They want what they can survive hearing.

Sometimes I stand in the shower too long,
let the water hide my face.
It’s the only place I can cry
without proof.

I hold my breath there,
long enough to forget
why I started.

I love like water.
I pull, I drown, I keep.
I make homes inside people
who never knew they were drowning.
If I let you in,
you’ll never leave clean.
I don’t fall in love.
I sink with it.

I remember everything,
the way their hands shook
when they said goodbye,
the scent that lingers
after a door closes.

I forgive easy,
but I remember the temperature
of every ending.

Sometimes I test myself,
wonder how deep I’d go
if someone actually stayed.
Would I surface again,
or stay buried in it?

I love like water.
I pull, I drown, I keep.
I make homes inside people
who never knew they were drowning.
If I let you in,
you’ll never leave clean.
I don’t fall in love.
I sink with it.

You’d never know it looking at me,
but I remember faces in the dark.
I remember the sound
of people leaving,
the way footsteps fade
when they’re sure you won’t follow.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter,
but I still wake up
reaching for ghosts.

Sometimes I wonder
if I love too heavy,
too deep,
too far below the light.

I try to learn balance,
to care without holding,
to want without keeping.
But every time I open,
I flood again.

And when it’s over,
I drain slow.

I love like water.
I pull, I drown, I keep.
I make homes inside people
who never knew they were drowning.
If I let you in,
you’ll never leave clean.
I don’t fall in love.
I sink with it.

If you ever feel the air change,
that’s me.
Still there.
Still circling.
Still pretending
I don’t want to surface.

I don’t move on.
I just move deeper.
That’s how I survive.

Sink With It

Snow rests on my eyelashes…
one small weight
as I lift the violin to my shoulder.
The sky looks close tonight,
like it wants to listen
to whatever is left in me to give.

I breathe in the cold,
sharp where the warm used to be.
The field waits…
wide, white, patient.
No footsteps behind me.
No voice calling me back.

I pull the first note.
It wavers in the air,
soft as a secret I never meant to keep.
Snow moves around me in slow circles,
like it remembers the steps
I’ve forgotten how to take.

I turn with it,
barely a dance,
barely a man,
just breath and trembling wood.
Each note leans into the next,
as if the music is carrying me
farther than my legs can go.

The flakes find my hair,
my sleeves,
the hollow beneath my throat.
They melt,
then they don’t.
Somewhere in that shift,
my hands start to shake.

The violin warms under my chin
only where I touch it.
Everywhere else
feels like the world preparing
to let me go.

I take another step,
slow enough to hear the snow answer back.
The bow slips once
a small fracture
and I almost stop,
but the silence feels heavier
than the sound ever did.

So I play.
I always play.
The note thins out
as if they know the cold better than I do.
As if they’ve already learned
how to disappear.

The field opens around me,
empty,
endless,
quiet in all the places I am not.
I move through it
like someone wandering back
into a memory he never finished living.

A breath catches
not in fear,
not in pain
just in that quiet way
the body admits
it’s tired.

The bow drags again,
and the tone breaks
right in the middle.
A hairline crack
running through the sound
through the string
through whatever is still holding me upright.

Snow gathers at my nape,
soft enough
to feel almost kind.
I close my eyes
and the world turns to white behind them.

One more turn,
one more step,
one more trembling pull
of the bow…

The last string snaps.
A thin, bright sound
cutting through the dark.
The violin jolts in my hands.
My knees give way
before the echo fades.

The snow meets me gently,
rising to my shoulders,
my chest,
my breath.
It settles like a blanket
no one ever tucked around me
when I needed it most.

The violin lies beside me,
quiet now,
its music spent.

The sky keeps falling white.

And as the last of me grows quiet
I feel the sound I didn’t finish
settle inside my chest
cold
still
mine

Winter's Violin

I love playing with words, finding new ways to put them together to express what I feel. I hope my poems encourage others to share their feelings openly and honestly. My aim is to paint pictures with words, making them sing in a way that touches everyone's heart and mind. Through my poetry, I want to create moments that everyone can see themselves in, exploring emotions and thoughts that connect us all.

Sink With It

Quickn

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Yvette Becton

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