My strange illusion is you.
It is always you.
I love you from the deepest snow,
where the body forgets warmth
and survival becomes optional.
Each breath is a decision,
and I choose you
again and again,
even as my lungs burn white.
Naked and afraid,
I become her deliberately—
the one who waits until waiting
erases her name.
Devotion hollows me out,
makes room only for you.
I memorize your absence,
trace it like scripture,
kneel inside it.
I know this love is an illusion.
That knowledge does not save me.
It sharpens me.
I watch for you in the storm,
mistaking every shadow for mercy.
I rehearse your return
until it feels inevitable.
When you come,
you bring no warmth,
no promise—
only love,
cold and unwrapped,
offered in the snow
where it cannot live.
I take it anyway.
I press it to my mouth.
I let it freeze inside me.
If this is not love,
then let obsession keep me.
Let winter have my breath.
Let the illusion
be the only thing
that never leaves.
Letters from Xhale the magazine Words that breathe. Stories that Linger, 