Erosion of Home

I spent most of my life chasing something I could never touch.

It was always there,
just out of reach
like light leaking through a closed door,
spilling into the hallway
as if to remind me what I was not allowed to enter.

Close enough to feel.
Never close enough to hold.

So I kept reaching anyway.

Like something starving,
scratching at iron gates until the skin gave way,
convinced warmth existed on the other side.

That was the shape of it.

That was me.

I told myself it would change one day.

That eventually,
the distance would soften.

That one day your eyes would settle on me
and stay there.

Not pass through.

Not look away.

Stay.

As if I had finally become something worth keeping.

I built myself around that possibility.

Carefully.

Like rebuilding a house from fragments after a fire,
hands still trembling,
trying to convince myself the foundation would hold this time.

Piece by piece.
Bone over bone.
Scar over scar.
Silence over silence.

I learned how to soften myself where I was too sharp.
How to disappear when I was too loud.
How to become acceptable.

But no matter how carefully I arranged myself,
something always felt misaligned.

Like a room rebuilt from memory,
almost correct,
but never quite livable.

There was always too much of me.

Too many thoughts crowding the inside like birds trapped in glass.

Too much anger, settling heavy in the ribs.

Too much longing, stretching everything thinner than it could safely hold.

You had given me a road once.

Straight.
Predictable.
Clean.

A path where nothing unexpected was supposed to happen
as long as I kept walking forward.

But it felt like surrender dressed as guidance.

So I left it.

I walked into something that did not have edges.

Into places that did not care if I survived them.

And I chose it anyway.

Every bruise.
Every wrong turn.
Every silence I swallowed instead of calling for help.

Mine.

That is where I think we started to disappear from each other.

Or maybe we never really met in the way I needed us to.

Sometimes I think distance does not begin with leaving.
It begins in rooms where no one speaks fully.
In meals that end without conversation.
In the sound of cutlery against porcelain
because it is easier than words.

I remember those nights.

Yellow light above the table.
The refrigerator humming like a tired breath.
A clock that never stopped reminding us of time passing without us.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

You on one side.

Me on the other.

A table between us that might as well have been another country.

We spoke in fragments.

Did you eat.
How was work.
You’re late.

And beneath it all,
something unspoken pressed against the walls of the room
until even silence felt crowded.

Years passed like that.

Rooms full of presence,
but never connection.

I was breaking quietly in front of you.
And you never said anything.
Or maybe you did notice,
and chose not to.

I still do not know which version hurts less.

I have done things I do not know how to carry.
Not monstrous things.
Just human ones.
Small fractures that accumulate over time
until you no longer recognize the shape of yourself.

I betrayed myself in quiet ways.

I stayed silent when I should have spoken.
I left when I should have stayed.
I held on when I should have let go.

I learned how to live with the noise inside me
by turning it into something that looked like strength.

And I know you had your own noise too.

I saw it in the way your anger arrived without warning,
filling the room before anyone could prepare for it.

In the way your silence lasted long enough to change the temperature of a house.

In the way love always felt measured,
like something rationed carefully
so it would not run out too quickly.

I carried all of that with me.
Not as memory.
As weight.
And now time feels different.
Not passing.
Pressing.
Like something leaning slowly against my chest
until even breathing feels negotiated.

The walls feel closer these days.
Not around me.
Inside me.
As if something within has started folding inward,
making less room for what remains.

I wake sometimes and feel the quiet before thought arrives.

That strange moment where everything feels suspended,
like the world is holding its breath without me.
And I wonder if this is what leaving feels like
when nothing actually moves.
Just diminishing.

We are all children of something we did not choose.

Raised in rooms too small for what we would become.
One day everything is laughter in open spaces,
bare feet on warm floors,
voices overlapping without effort.
And then one day,
without announcement,

everything becomes quieter.

Doors stay closed longer.
Names are said less often.
People begin to disappear without leaving.

Not suddenly.

Gradually.

Until you stop noticing the absence
because it has become normal.

I think that is what happened to us.

Not an event.

An erosion.

Years wearing down what could have been solid.

I wanted to tell you everything.

The nights I sat in parked cars long after arriving,
unable to bring myself to go inside.

The mornings I looked at my reflection
and felt like I was looking at someone I used to know.

The exhaustion of being alive
without ever feeling fully present inside it.

The loneliness that does not announce itself
but settles in like dust,
everywhere at once,
impossible to clean.

I wanted you to know me.

Not the version that functioned.

Not the version that survived.

Me.

The unfinished thing beneath all of it.
The parts I never learned how to explain without breaking something.
But we never built the language for that.
What we had was smaller.

Safer.
Weather.
Work.
Food.

Silence.

Always silence.

And now there are miles between us.

Not measured in roads or distance,
but in everything that was never said
and slowly became permanent.

I kept thinking there would be time.

That one day we would sit without pretending.
That words would finally come easier than silence.
That I would not have to carry everything alone anymore.
But time does not wait for understanding.

It only moves.

And sometimes that is enough to lose everything quietly.
And maybe you were proud of me.
Maybe it existed somewhere underneath everything else.

Or maybe it did not.

I do not know.

That is the part that stays.

Not the absence.

The uncertainty.

Still standing in doorways that never fully close.
Still waiting for something that no longer knows how to arrive.
I guess some versions of us never stop waiting.

I used to think I was waiting for you.

Now I am not sure I ever left that doorway at all.

And I cannot tell anymore
whether I am the one who was supposed to come in…

Or the one who was supposed to be found.

And the silence after that feels complete.

Thank you for everything, Dad.

Canvas of Life

I am holding a paintbrush,

trying to pour colour into a life
that has forgotten how to glow.

Standing before a canvas so wide
that I cannot see where it begins
or where it ends,
I realize I have been painting for years
without ever understanding
what picture I was trying to create.

One careful stroke at a time,
one trembling line across empty space,
another shade pressed into forgotten corners,
another quiet attempt
to convince myself that broken things
can still become beautiful.

I dip the brush again.

Blue dissolves into black.
Red bleeds into grey.
Colours collide without permission,
running into places they were never meant to go.

Some drip downward
like tears falling from tired eyes.
Some spread across the surface violently,
as if they are trying to escape the frame itself.
Others simply disappear,
swallowed by darker colours
before anyone notices they were there at all.

I keep painting anyway.

Because somewhere between desperation and hope,
I convinced myself
that if I just tried harder,
if I added one more colour,
one more line,
one more piece of myself,

Everything would finally make sense.

I thought maybe life worked like puzzles.
Maybe every missing piece
was waiting patiently somewhere,
and all I had to do
was keep searching.

But no one ever tells you
that some pieces disappear.

Some are lost forever.

Some arrive broken.

And some fit perfectly,
only to leave empty spaces behind
when they decide not to stay.

And then I stop.

I step back from the canvas.

I stare at it in silence,
trying to discover art hidden somewhere in the mess I created,
trying to find poetry between crooked lines
and purpose inside accidental stains.

But the lines are not parallel.

They do not meet.

They wander away from one another
like strangers pretending
they were never meant to belong together.

The shadows are too dark.
The light never reaches the places I wanted it to.
Nothing looks the way I imagined.

I search for meaning
the same way people search for stars
in polluted skies
hoping something beautiful still exists
behind all the noise.

Then I realize something.

Sometimes,

Some things are beautiful exactly the way they arrive.

A blank white canvas
untouched by doubt.

A brand-new car
before roads leave dust in its veins.

A heart yet to discover heartbreak.

A smile
that has not yet learned how to disguise pain.

Morning sunlight entering an empty room.

Fresh footprints in untouched snow.

A song before memories attach themselves to it.

Hands before they learn
what it feels like to let go.

Perhaps perfection only exists
before our hands begin interfering.

Maybe I am the problem.

Maybe in my endless need to repair everything
every fading light,
every sinking ship,
every wounded soul.

I forgot to notice
that I, too,
was slowly falling apart.

Maybe while trying to save everyone else from drowning,
I never realized
the water had already reached my lungs.

Maybe I became so busy
holding broken pieces of other people together
that I forgot my own hands were bleeding.

Funny how pain works.

You become so familiar with carrying it
that eventually
you stop noticing the weight.

You learn to walk with chains
until they begin to feel like skin.

Then suddenly,
everything breaks open.

Years of silence collapse all at once.

Words I swallowed.
Tears I buried.
Memories I locked away behind doors
I promised never to open again.

And the avalanche finally arrives.

Not with noise.

Not with violence.

But quietly.

The way winter arrives at night
and steals the warmth from everything by morning.

The way dust slowly settles on forgotten photographs.

The way oceans quietly erode mountains
without anyone noticing.

Some destructions do not scream.

Some arrive softly,
sit beside you,
and slowly teach your heart
how to become heavy.

Now I am no longer holding the brush.

Now I sit in the passenger seat,
watching someone else paint on my canvas.

And strangely,
I do not seem to care anymore.

Let them take the keys.
Let them steer

Because from the passenger side, it looks so easy. 

Their hands do not shake. 

Their strokes move with a clinical certainty,
as if they can hear a melody
I spent years searching for. 

They create constellations where I saw only emptiness,
they force harmony onto my chaos,
painting a life that looks beautiful to everyone else
while I sit quietly in the corner,
wondering how it is possible to feel like a ghost inside your own masterpiece. 

I watch how easily they choose colours. 

How naturally they fake the beauty.

How confidently they move through uncertainty.

And I wonder

Was I holding the brush wrong all along?

Or was I simply trying to paint sunlight during storms?

I glance down at my hands.

There is dried paint beneath my fingernails,
colours from battles
I do not even remember fighting anymore.

Tiny scars rest on my fingers,
silent reminders
of wars nobody knew I was in.

Proof that I kept trying.

Proof that I kept holding together things
that were already falling apart.

Proof that somewhere along the way
I mistook survival
for living.

Then I return to silence.

But silence is never empty.

Silence is crowded.

It carries every scream that was swallowed,
every goodbye left unfinished,
every feeling that arrived too heavy
to ever become words.

Silence remembers everything.

Even things we desperately try to forget.

Especially those things.

The quiet ones are often the people
who once felt too much,
until one day,
they felt nothing at all.
And I am no different.

I carry a heart that feels eighty years old
inside a body still pretending otherwise.

A tired heart.

One with exhausted walls
and old scars hidden beneath every beat.

Do not be deceived by this foolish smile.
some smiles are paintings too.
painted carefully across tired faces,
created to convince the world
that everything is still standing
even when entire cities inside us
have already collapsed.

My heart left the conversation a long time ago.
It returned only for attendance,
arriving every morning with mechanical loyalty,
beating because it had to,
not because it wanted to.
And yet somehow,
sadness remained behind.

Funny how sadness always knows where home is.

There are different layers to every person.
The layers we proudly display.
The layers we polish beneath bright lights
for others to admire.
The layers we speak about loudly.
And then there are the hidden ones.

The abandoned rooms.

The locked doors.

The pieces of ourselves
we pray no one ever discovers.

Mine feel like endless hallways now.

Rooms covered with dust.

Windows that have not seen sunlight in years.

Echoes of old laughter
still bouncing off walls
long after everyone has left.

And I am afraid mine have grown too thick.

Too heavy.

They wrap around my heart
like chains disguised as protection,
holding me down,
pulling me backward
every time I try to move forward.

Teaching me how to sink
while convincing me I am standing still.

Maybe I did not begin with the softest brush.

Maybe my colours were never the brightest.

Maybe my hands shook too much.

Maybe I was never meant to become a great painter.

But I tried.

God knows I tried.

I stood before this canvas of life
with hopeful eyes and trembling hands.

I painted with everything I had.
With love.
With fear.
With hope.
With heartbreak.
With dreams too heavy to carry.
With expectations I could never reach.

With pieces of myself
I can never take back.

And what I had at the end
was not beautiful in the way I imagined.

It was chaotic.

Wild.

Messy.

Full of unfinished corners and accidental storms.

But maybe we all carry similar canvases.

Each of us walking through life
holding different brushes,
different colours,
different scars hidden beneath our sleeves.

Maybe we spend too much time
trying to paint inside the lines,
never realizing that storms
were never meant to stay inside frames.

Maybe everyone is just pretending
to understand what they are doing.
Maybe everyone is staring at their own mess,
calling it failure,
while someone else looks at it
and calls it art.

Maybe mine was never the most beautiful.

Maybe people would look at it
and only see confusion.

But I would see every sleepless night,
every battle survived,
every silent war fought alone.

I would see every version of myself
that died quietly
so another version could keep moving forward.

I would see fingerprints in the corners,
evidence that I never stopped trying to hold things together.

Because it was mine.

Every stain.
Every crack.
Every ruined line.
Every colour I spilled while my hands were shaking.

Mine.

And maybe life was never about creating a masterpiece.

Maybe it was never about perfection.

Maybe it was never about painting something
people would stop and admire.

Maybe it was only about having the courage
to keep painting,

even when your hands tremble,

even when colours betray you,

even when storms ruin entire sections of your sky,

even when you are convinced
you have already destroyed everything.

Because perhaps one day,
many years from now,
I will stand before my canvas one final time,
look at all the chaos,
all the mistakes,
all the uneven lines and shattered colours,

And finally smile.

Not because it became beautiful.

But because despite everything,

I never put the brush down.

Hollow

I awaken

not because I have rested,
but because punishment requires consciousness.

Sleep is a temporary exile.
Morning is the sentence.

I return to myself unwillingly,
dragged upward through layers of stale dreams
into a room that feels like an abandoned cathedral
hollow, echoing, dust suspended in pale light
like the ashes of something that once burned.

Guilt greets me first.
It is punctual.
Fear follows closely behind,
never missing its cue.

The thoughts I once tried to silence
have grown disciplined.
They line up neatly,
waiting to be reviewed
evidence in a trial where I am both defendant and judge.

Life has not merely turned grey.
It has curdled.

Color exists somewhere, I assume,
but it refuses to attach itself to me.
The sky bleeds without warmth.
The air tastes metallic.
Even memory feels drained,
like photographs left too long in the sun.

Every day loops
a corridor of identical doors,
each one opening to the same narrow room
with the same unmade bed
and the same version of me
staring back from the mirror
with less definition than the day before.

No joy.
No anticipation.
No love that does not rot under scrutiny.

Here is my sin:

I prefer the ache I recognize.

Pain, when familiar,
is manageable.
Predictable.
It does not surprise me.
It does not abandon me.

To reach for something brighter
would require hope
and hope has teeth.
It bites harder than despair
when it withdraws.

So I remain here,
in the well-mapped geography of sorrow,
tracing the same emotional fault lines
until they deepen into canyons.

But age is merciless.
It forces reflection like a mirror held too close.

I begin to ask questions
I cannot outrun:

What if I had taken the other turn?
The riskier one.
The one that trembled with possibility
instead of certainty’s suffocation?

Who would I be?
Would I recognize myself?
Would that version of me
walk lighter
or would he be equally broken,
just in a different language?

The thought constricts around my throat
like wire.
Not a dramatic rope
just thin, quiet pressure
tightening gradually
until breath becomes negotiation.

Words fail me.
They scatter like insects when exposed to light.
Language was never built
to contain the shape of this emptiness.

I stand at the edge of something unnamed.
It looks like insanity from afar,
but up close
it feels more like clarity.

I have been waiting
for rescue,
for revelation,
for some external force
to interrupt the monotony of my unraveling.

I cling to hope
like a drowning man clings to driftwood,
refusing to notice
it is waterlogged.

We betray ourselves gently.
Not in violence,
but in repetition.

In choosing the known wound
over the uncertain cure.

I wanted to feel okay.
That was the ambition.

Not extraordinary.
Not radiant.
Just… tolerable.

I studied others
their laughter,
their spontaneity,
the effortless way they occupied space
without apologizing for it.

I learned to imitate.
I curated responses.
Adjusted tones.
Softened edges.

And eventually,
I became convincing.

So convincing, in fact,
that even I believed it.

But imitation is erosion.

Each borrowed gesture
filed away something original.

Each performance
left residue.

Now I stand
with a face assembled from fragments
not quite false,
not quite real.

I cannot release who I was.
I cannot embrace who I’ve become.
I exist in between
a poorly stitched compromise.

Every path feels incorrect.
Every detour folds back into itself.
The maze stretches endlessly
fear forming the walls,
regret the floor,
guilt the ceiling pressing lower each year.

I run.
I search.
I exhaust myself.

No shortcuts.
No hidden exits.

Just the growing suspicion
that escape was never designed
for me.

And then,
in the thickest hour of night,
when silence hums louder than thought,
the realization arrives

There is no maze.

There never was.

No walls.
No architect.
No cruel design.

Only me.

I built the corridors
out of hesitation.
Laid the bricks
with postponed decisions.
Mortared them
with fear of being wrong.

The tourniquet?
My hands.

The grey sky?
My eyelids half-closed.

The exit?
Visible the entire time.

But here is the darker truth

I knew.

Somewhere beneath the rehearsed despair,
beneath the comfortable suffering,
I knew I could leave.

I simply chose not to.

Because staying
requires less courage
than living.

And so the twist is not that I am trapped
but that I am loyal
to the trap.

Morning comes again.

I awaken.

And this time,
I do not blame the maze.

I tighten the wire gently around my own throat,
call it routine,
call it realism,
call it fate

And step back into the corridor
I constructed
with deliberate hands.

No Title

I guess this is how it ends.

Not with redemption. Not with forgiveness.
Not with a sunrise or a softened heart or some poetic last-minute epiphany.
No.
It ends in rot, in silence, in the quiet flick of a switch no one hears until it’s far too late.
No orchestra. No climax. No crowd holding its breath.
Just a door closing softly, and a voice that decided never to come back.

I’ve carried this weight for too long,
let it fuse with my bones,
let it throb beneath my skin like a second pulse,
constant, low, gnawing.
It was never sadness.
It was never grief.
It was something older than both.
Resentment, maybe.
Or the kind of fury that’s too still to scream,
the kind that just… waits.

They always told me to let go,
“Just forgive,” they said, as if mercy grows in places salt has scorched,
as if forgiveness were a switch,
and not a graveyard I’ve been forced to sleep in.

But I didn’t let go.
I sharpened it.
Polished it until it gleamed like a blade under moonlight.
I fed it in small, quiet ways,
biting my tongue, laughing when I wanted to snap bones,
pretending I didn’t hear what I heard, feel what I felt.
And every time I swallowed it down, it twisted deeper,
until it became me.

This world fed on me.
Smiled as it swallowed me whole, piece by piece,
with hands that pretended to hold but only ever hollowed.
They applauded my suffering in subtle ways,
nods, silence, the ever-polite indifference of people pretending not to enjoy the spectacle.
I was entertainment.
Now it’s my turn.

Don’t mistake this for a confession.
I owe no one the courtesy.
This isn’t remorse. This isn’t weakness.
This is anatomy.
This is the raw architecture of rage sculpted into its final form.

There is no redemption arc here.
There’s no tragic backstory you can cradle in your hands and feel sorry for.
I am not your cautionary tale.
I am not a misunderstood soul waiting for love to unlock some latent humanity.
No.
I am what remains when empathy runs dry,
when the reservoir of restraint cracks open and floods everything in its path.
I am aftermath.
And nothing more.

I don’t want to be understood.
Understanding is a luxury afforded to those who were seen.
I want to be remembered,
not fondly, not kindly,
but as a stain no soap can cleanse,
a whisper that unsettles the air long after the room is empty.
Let them tell children not to speak my name.
Let them cross themselves at the mention of it.
Let them know what silence can become when it rots.

Do you know what it’s like to wake up and feel nothing but contempt in your mouth,
like acid at the back of your throat?
To hear laughter and feel your jaw tighten,
not from jealousy, but from the sheer absurdity of people thinking any of this means anything?

I do.
And it made me clear.
Clearer than I’ve ever been.

Every smile I wore was a lie stretched thin across clenched teeth.
Every “I’m fine” was a burial, another coffin sealed inside me.
You didn’t notice.
No one did.
Why would they?
I played the role so well.
I became fluent in faking it.
In silencing the scream just before it hit the air.
In nodding when I wanted to vanish.

But there’s something beautiful about letting it all rot.
About watching the mask slip,
about finally dragging what lived in the shadows out into the daylight and letting it scream.
You called it madness.
I call it liberation.

I let the hatred grow wild,
like ivy down the sides of my mind,
crawling into the cracks of reason.
I stopped pruning it.
I let it bloom, poisonous and radiant.
I fed it with every betrayal, every eyeroll, every casual dismissal.
And now it’s tall enough to climb.
Tall enough to leap from.
Tall enough to choke the sky.

If you're looking for remorse, you’ve opened the wrong letter.
If you're hoping for a tragic moral, turn the page.
There’s no lesson here.
Only consequence.
Consequence shaped like a person,
like a ghost with teeth.

I became something else.
Something worse.
Something truer.
I unlearned compassion.
I untied my empathy like a tourniquet, let the poison flow freely.
It felt good.
God, it felt human.
Not the watered-down version of humanity that begs to be liked,
but the kind that howls under the moon and knows what it is.

I don’t expect you to understand the peace that comes with letting go of decency.
It’s like stepping outside after years underground,
the sun burning your skin,
the air too sharp to breathe,
and knowing, finally, that this pain is real.
That it’s yours.
And that it hurts better than numbness ever did.

There’s a freedom in knowing no one’s coming to save you.
No heroes. No gods.
Just the echo of your own voice in a locked room.
You make your own ending
or you rot waiting for someone else to write it.

So, I wrote mine.

I made my decision long ago,
long before the last straw,
long before the final insult,
long before the small betrayals piled so high they blocked the light.
All of this was inevitable.
And maybe I was always meant to be this thing,
this walking venom,
this clenched fist of a person no one could quite love
but everyone expected to endure.

I hope they talk.
I hope they speculate.
I hope they spin their theories, point their fingers, and try to make sense of what I’ve done.
Let them waste their breath.

The truth is simpler than they’ll ever guess.
I was tired of pretending.
Tired of swallowing it all down.
Tired of waiting for a world that never gave a damn to suddenly care.

So, I burned the house I was dying in.
And no, I don’t regret the fire.
I watched it catch like it was always meant to,
quick, eager, merciless.
It felt like exhaling.
Like finally saying something true.

Let the smoke carry my name like a curse.
Let the ruins speak for me now.
Let them wonder if they could have stopped it,
if a kind word,
a touch,
a pause,
might’ve pulled me back.

They couldn’t have.
No one could.
Because I never wanted saving.

I wanted silence.
I wanted revenge.
I wanted to become something no one could ignore ever again.

So here I am.
And now,
here I go.

No name.
No apology.
No peace.
Only this.

365

I am lost in this world I meticulously made, not by intention, but by accumulation—brick by brick, fear by fear, one misstep at a time. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I had a blueprint once: laughter in sunlit kitchens, voices that didn’t echo, a self that smiled without trying. But somewhere between the plans and the present, I built something else entirely. A labyrinth. A dream that loops.

Now, I drift through this architecture of my own despair, like a ghost with no home and too much memory. Each hallway looks familiar but ends differently—sometimes in mirrors, sometimes in doors that won’t open, and sometimes in strange rooms where I watch myself from a corner. I speak, but my voice has no sound. I cry, but the tears evaporate before they fall.

Over and over, I return to the same dream. It starts the same every time: I’m on a bridge that never ends, walking barefoot on wet concrete, the sky above me a permanent twilight. A train passes in the distance, always out of reach. A child cries behind me. I turn around—no one’s there. I’ve come to recognize this place. It's not a dream. It's a memory that's lost its anchor.

Am I awake? Did I ever wake up?

I wish I had answers, but reality has become a negotiation between imagination and survival. I open my eyes each morning, uncertain if I’ve entered the world or simply moved to another layer of the same dream. The boundaries blur. The air feels scripted. The light feels artificial.

I’ve tried grounding myself. Pinching my arms. Screaming into pillows. Scratching at my skin until red becomes the only certainty. But nothing cuts through the haze. Every step I take folds in on itself, like walking through a painting that refuses to let you leave the canvas. I am aware of my body, but not of its meaning.

I’ve tried to disappear. Packed bags with no destination. Walked through cities I didn’t belong to, changed my name in coffee shops just to feel reborn. I’ve slept in unfamiliar beds with unfamiliar people, hoping their warmth might rewrite my code. I’ve sat on beaches at 3 AM and screamed at the sea to swallow me whole. But no matter where I go, I take the ghost with me. I carry the ache like a passport.

The pain doesn’t ask for attention anymore. It’s just there—like the sound of a fridge humming or the dull ache in your knees when it rains. It doesn't scream. It lingers. Follows. Settles.

And it’s always the same:

Over and over again,
I just cannot get away.
And I can’t escape from myself.

Sometimes I imagine fading into the wallpaper, becoming part of the furniture. Just vanishing. Maybe as smoke. Or mist. Or fog. Something shapeless, formless—unburdened by memory. I romanticize the idea of disappearing as if it’s freedom, as if the erasure of my existence would finally bring peace. But even in those fantasies, some part of me lingers. A shadow. A footprint. A name someone used to call.

Every morning, I wake up with the same dull pressure in my chest, like an anchor hugging my ribs. My body is a house filled with quiet grief, and the emptiness clings to me like a second skin. It hums beneath the surface. It watches me from mirrors. It sighs when I try to smile.

I’ve grown addicted to this melancholy. It’s not beautiful—but it’s familiar. I’ve memorized the flavor of despair, the cadence of hopeless thoughts. I’ve made art from agony, turned sorrow into rhythm. I light candles not for warmth but for mourning, not of others, but of the versions of myself I’ve lost along the way.

I became what I feared:
Distant. Cold. Unreachable.

I used to dream in color. Now everything is muted, like someone turned down the saturation on the world. My ambitions, once fierce fires, are now smoldering coals. I no longer chase things—I let them pass, like trains I refuse to board.

Each day is a carbon copy of the last. The calendar mocks me. The hours blur into one another. I wake, I sit, I pretend to be a person. I eat food that has no taste. I nod at conversations I don’t understand. I scroll, scroll, scroll until my mind goes blank. My bed is both prison and sanctuary.

Where do I go from here?

Every word I try to write feels like a lie. Nothing captures the truth of what’s inside me. I am too fractured for language. My soul—if it still exists—is too bruised to scream. All the pain just piles up in silence, builds cathedrals of grief in my chest, and prays in the name of “just one more day.”

Sometimes I imagine myself on a stage. A single spotlight. A crowd of strangers. I open my mouth and tell them everything. Every fear. Every longing. Every time I begged the universe for a sign and got static instead. I tell them that I never wanted to be this person. I wanted to matter. To feel real. To love and be loved without conditions.

But I leave the stage before they can clap. Because there is no applause for honesty. Only echoes.

I don’t remember much anymore. Names. Dates. The last time I felt awe. But the things I wish I could forget—those stay. The hurtful words. The near-misses. The faces of those who walked away like I was nothing more than a temporary shelter.

As I drift into sleep, I sometimes imagine that in another life, I made it. I imagine waking up beside someone who sees me—not just the smile I manufacture, but the storm beneath. I imagine working a job that doesn't hollow me out. I imagine writing words that heal instead of haunt. I imagine peace—not joy, not ecstasy—just peace.

But for now…

As I step out of the dream or into it—who knows anymore—I just want to say,
I wanted things to be different.
I did.

I am not unique in my sorrow. I know that now. We all carry something. We all scream into different voids. But still, there’s a part of me that hoped I would break the pattern. That I would be seen. That I would matter. That someone, someday, would look at me and whisper, “You made it.”

But I didn’t.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.

I am nothing special.
I am just like you.

And maybe…
Maybe that's enough.