I’m looking forward
To the beaming stadium lights
Performing in a warm summer night
Feeling my sunburn prickle off my face as I smile

So many memories
Reduced to tears
Yet here I am
Still alive

I miss the constant memories
Each hall filled with still life
Of tapping on display cases
Slamming water fountains

At the same time
I dreaded each memory
Because I thought the past was so great
In reality
Life doesn’t change
Just the things we have

I asked AI
The trolley problem
It chose changing tracks
That got me thinking

If an AI system
Built to be fully ethical
Would choose several lives over one
Knowing it’s choosing death
Does that mean decisions don’t have to benefit everyone else?

My whole life
I put myself down for others
In every decision
I handed over solos
Let people go
It wasn’t for me
It was for everyone else

Now I’m thinking
What my life can be if I change that
Maybe the way to do so isn’t resurfacing the past
And breaking every ethical law in existence
Maybe it’s to build a new future

So I’m switching out my friends
For ones who actually care and understand
Who support everything I do

I’m putting effort into fixing my family
It never really was that bad to fix
It felt impossible because I had so many problems

What even are problems
I think they’re useless
No life lesson has problems
Sure there are limitations, and motivators
Not making an audition just means working harder though
There’s always next time

I spent so much time
Worrying about me
While I worked for others
Deciding against my own health


I’ll never be okay
Never alright or bien
But I can be me
I can lose useless problems
I can learn what healthy supporting is

This isn’t an attack-
It’s just how I feel.
It’s why I had five days you weren’t on my mind.
I blamed myself for my obsession, claiming it hurt like hell.
In truth-
getting rid of that, even if I haven’t but think I have, made it easier.
I know one thing-
obsessing over what can never be will only lead to eternal suffering.
If I can’t talk to you, I’m not.
I just don’t like my name tarnished for other people’s problems
My heart ripped out and being humiliated for it
I don’t like it.
That’s why I’m still at the beach, watching the waves, encouraging my loneliness.

I was honest—
not in speeches or long explanations,
but in the way I stayed
through every crack in your story.
In the way I gave when I had nothing left.
In the way I let you blame me
just to keep your world from falling apart.

I smiled when I felt like screaming.
Laughed when I wanted to disappear.
Listened while my own voice
got quieter and quieter.

You said I held you back.
Maybe I did—
but only from burning down
the last bit of peace you had left.
I stood between you and the edge
and let you tell yourself it was my fault
the cliff existed in the first place.

And still, I stayed.

But that version of me—
the one who bent
so you could feel less broken—
he’s done.

I’m not going to pretend anymore.
Not for you.
Not for anyone.
Because pretending made me forget
that I mattered, too.

I was honest,
even in silence.
Especially in silence.
But now honesty looks like walking away—
without a speech,
without a scene,
without regret.

It feels like my sadness-
My grief and weight,
Have been forgotten.
Like I don’t have a heart,
But instead a body and soul,
Channeled to my thoughts.
Maybe I’m not in the mood,
But don’t explain.
I like the me that thinks for himself.
The me who doesn’t cling from one person to the next.
The me who trusts himself,
And reaches out to his nearest allies.
Living a lie is a fun challenge!
It’s not right.
Living life is where it’s at.
On any planet, across the universe.

My body aches,
In sync with my heart.
Was it forgetting my inhaler,
Or remembering things I hadn’t thought in a week?
Who knows.
I should.

I just know that in all the noise—
the bell ringing,
the half-laughed conversations,
the tired shuffle from one room to another—
I feel alive.

Not the fake kind.
Not the forced smile,
or the “I’m fine” kind of alive.

But the real thing.
Like I’m inside my life again,
not just watching it happen from somewhere far off.

Even the ache feels honest.
Even the thoughts I don’t want,
they pass without clawing.
I let them go.

And somehow,
in the blur of movement,
I find stillness.

I’m enjoying it.
Every second.
Not needing it to be more,
not asking it to stay.

Just… being here,
without weight.

I raise my hands to shield the blinding sun,
Watch the disc float clean over my head.
I reach, I snag, and the field erupts—
Applause breaking like sunlight through the clouds.

This, I think, is what life should feel like:
Coming home still dusted in sweat,
Laughing with my mom,
Devouring dinner like I’ve never eaten before.

For once, I’m not fading into the background.
I’m someone.
A name that matters.
A face that knows who to smile for.
A heart I’m learning to steady.
A mind I’m letting grow.

I’m not a burden.
Sure, I’m not always the center.
Sometimes I’m even cast as the villain.
But I make a difference.
I’m going somewhere real.

I need to stop running back to broken places.
Life isn’t ruin—it’s a gift.
And I’m done living lies.
I like being free.

Free from the chaos.
Free from the drama.
Free from the weight of a world
That never really saw me right.

I like when I feel light.
Like I’m not carrying every version of who I used to be.
Like I’m not being rewritten by someone else’s sadness.
But instead, writing myself into something better.

I want laughter that echoes.
Not silence that waits for me to fill it.
I want arms that hold me as I am.
Not ones that grip tighter when I start to slip away.

I’m not perfect, but I’m trying—
Trying to be softer with myself.
Trying to forgive what I didn’t deserve.
Trying to stop apologizing for healing out loud.

Let the ones who misunderstood stay confused.
Let the chapters they twisted stay closed.
I’ve got new ones to write,
With more truth, less weight,
And a lot more light.