last night, a faceless figure cloaked in light appeared in my dream. they said, without speaking: wake up. write the poem. wear it like armor. i tried. but sleep held me down thick and sweet like the sadness that’s been following me. maybe it’s the pill, the way it made me cry without reason, the slow sinking i mistook for my own. i’ve stopped taking it, but something in me still floats just beneath. i slept twelve hours. when i woke, the poem was gone. just the echo remained that something sacred tried to reach me and i turned away. i think of the yarrow flower inked along my arm, how my body seized while someone gave my illness a name. sometimes, memory feels like that dream blurred,but sharp where it matters. i don’t remember the words. only that they were meant to hold me.