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.