I wish I could pause my existence, just fade into the wind, unnoticed, untouched.

  What if disappearing isn’t about dying, but finally resting?

  I’m not tired like sleep can fix. I’m tired like being alive became too loud.

  They said I changed. No, I just stopped bleeding for people who watched.

  There’s a difference between being numb and being done. I am the latter.

  I once gave warmth. Now I give silence.

  I smile, but behind the smile is an empty hallway no one walks down.

  What if the real me isn’t sad or happy, just gone?

  I stopped opening up because even echoes don’t answer anymore.

  I buried my feelings so deep, I forgot where I put them.

  Some days, I look in the mirror and wonder if I’m a person or just a performance.

  I’ve worn so many masks, I don’t know if I have a face underneath.

  I wasn’t seeking attention. I was screaming quietly, hoping someone would read between the lines.

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  They laughed at my sadness because I made it rhyme.

  If pain was loud, would they still ignore it?

  Everyone asks how I am. No one asks why I’m that way.

  I’ve given people the password to my soul, and they logged out.

  I want to be understood, not fixed.

  I miss me, but I don’t know what version of me I’m supposed to miss.

  They laughed at the joke, but I was dead serious.

  Humor became my defense mechanism and now I don’t know how to speak seriously.

  We treat life like a series of main character moments, but deep down we feel like background characters.

  I romanticize my life because reality is way too sharp.

  Everyone says I’m the protagonist but I feel like I’m written out of my own story.

  I can’t tell if I’m burnt out or just emotionally extinct.

  I didn’t outgrow joy. I just forgot how to recognize it without guilt.

  Sometimes I don’t feel sad. Just... gray.

  We were raised on games and cartoons but thrown into a world of war and climate doom.

  We grew up with fairy tales and then watched the world burn on live streams.

  Why did they give us hope if they were gonna destroy everything?

  Everyone wants to be understood, but no one knows how to listen.

  I shrink my sadness into jokes so it fits in conversations.

  I’m scared of being too much and not enough at the same time.

  I don’t want advice. I want someone to sit in the silence with me.

  I say ‘I’m fine’ so much it feels like my real name.

  I feel guilty for resting, like I owe the world my exhaustion.

  I’m scared I’ll never find a love that doesn’t make me feel replaceable.

  I sometimes rehearse conversations I’ll never have.

  I want to be noticed without having to break down to get attention.

  I told others they’re only human and can feel hopeless, but nobody ever told that to me.

  I have to control everything because if one thing is out of place, I feel like the whole world will fall apart.

  I don’t want to be perfect. I just want to stop being the reason I can’t breathe.

  The need to be perfect didn’t come from pride, it came from fear of being unlovable if I wasn’t.

  I clean my room like I’m scrubbing away my worthlessness.

  Perfection isn’t peaceful. It’s a silent panic attack dressed in pretty handwriting and fake smiles.

  I tell others there’s no storm in history that lasted forever while I’m trying not to fall of the boat.

  I cry when I mess up because I don’t know who I am if I’m not doing everything right.

  They thought I was disciplined. I was just scared to fail.

  Perfectionism is when failure doesn’t mean you did something wrong, it means you are something wrong.

  I say ‘it’s not good enough’ before anyone else can. That way if they hate it, at least I already hated it first.

  I hate compliments. I can’t trust them. If they really knew me, they’d take them back.

  If you relate to any of those, stay close and hold tight, because I don’t just write, I leave my, your, and all the human history’s pain and left pieces of our souls in these words.