WHEN THE WATCHER LEARNS MY NAME

Written by Antonio De Villar

I open my eyes… and something cold is watching.

Not a god, not a ghost—

just a small, silent bird

perched like a witness

to my unraveling.

Day rots into night,

night rots back into day,

and still he stares,

unblinking, patient,

as if he already knows how this ends.

I hurl my glass at him—

it shatters like my last excuse—

but he doesn’t move.

Indifference sits on his feathers

like dust on a forgotten tomb.

Then suddenly I see through his eyes—

and what I see steals the breath from my bones:

a cramped wooden box

with a body inside.

My body.

Still.

Waiting.

Already claimed.

I think I’m dead…

yet my mind refuses to shut down.

My pulse feels borrowed,

beating with someone else’s guilt.

I’ve done wrong,

but nothing deserving

of being buried alive

in a box too small for forgiveness.

Memories twitch like dying insects—

I remember striking at the bird,

but the moment slips,

fractured and incomplete.

Maybe I missed.

Maybe I didn’t.

Maybe I was the one being hunted

all along.

I force my gaze down my body—

and there he is again,

the bird, still staring,

closer now,

as if measuring the distance

between my suffering and its purpose.

I try to move my legs,

but they feel like hollow branches—

rotted, brittle,

barely part of me.

My efforts mean nothing.

He will not leave.

This must be a dream, I tell myself,

the kind that traps you in your own skin

and peels it slow.

Maybe I’ll wake up.

Maybe there’s still a dawn left for me.

But when I look down again,

hope exhales its last breath—

my flesh is open, stripped,

pale ribbons curling away from bone

like old pages burning in reverse.

And the bird…

he leans closer,

as if he’s been waiting

for this exact moment.

I watch myself

being eaten away,

piece by fragile piece—

a slow, deliberate feast

on the sins I never atoned for.

The bird never blinks.

He just watches.

As if he’s been watching me

my entire life.