it evaporates.

I try to pour my voice down like concrete;

somehow,

I trace the path to its erasure

So certain have I felt in my declarations

until I have stood before you,

my naked mouth agape,

my whirling incantations lost

I would swear up and down I am not afraid

and still of this I am sure –

There is mercy in hesitation,

I would perish without my contradictions.

I would suffocate without the things that I fear.

Poem by Ellie Ellias. Originally published in Assignment Literary Magazine in Dec, 2024.