I wake up.
But I don’t really wake up, do I?
The bed feels like it’s holding me down—
like I’m trapped inside my own skin.
I think about moving,
but my body’s too tired to listen.
My bones ache.
My mind aches.
And I’m still here.
Stuck.

I run my hands through my hair,
but nothing changes.
The noise in my head keeps getting louder,
like it’s trying to drown me.
Every thought is a weight,
every breath a struggle.
I’m suffocating in a room full of air.

The world keeps moving.
People keep laughing,
but it’s like I’m behind a glass,
just watching—
always watching,
never a part of it.
I can’t reach it.
I can’t reach them.
I can’t reach myself.

Some days, I fake it.
I paint a smile on my face,
tell everyone, “I’m fine.”
But it’s a lie.
A lie I tell so often,
I don’t know how to stop.
The emptiness inside me is too big,
too loud,
but I don’t know how to say it,
so I say nothing.
I hide it behind a smile,
and hope no one sees
how broken I really am.

Other days, I don’t even try.
I don’t have the strength to pretend anymore.
The world feels too far away,
and I’m too tired to care.
Too tired to fight.
Too tired to get out of bed.
Too tired to even keep breathing.
I don’t know how to keep going when
everything feels so heavy,
so pointless,
so wrong.

The light fades—
it’s been fading for a while now.
I don’t remember when it stopped shining,
but I can feel the darkness creeping in.
It wraps around me like a second skin,
and I don’t know how to take it off.
I want to scream.
I want to shout,
but my voice feels broken.
It’s like I’m invisible,
like no one can hear me,
and the silence is deafening.

Everything is dark,
and I’m still here,
fighting to breathe,
fighting to feel anything at all,
but nothing changes.
And I don’t know how much longer I can stay here—
in this emptiness,
in this darkness.
I don’t know how to move,
but I don’t know how to stay still either.
I’m just... here.

It doesn’t ask for permission.
It doesn’t wait for the “right” time.
One moment, I’m fine—
laughing, talking,
doing what I’m supposed to do.
Then the wave hits,
and everything falls apart.
Suddenly,
I’m drowning in my own head.

Sitting with friends—
I’m laughing,
I’m talking,
but inside,
I’m screaming.
I’m so far away from them,
and they don’t even know.
I can’t hear their voices anymore.
I can’t even hear myself.
I’m just stuck—
alone in a room full of people.

At school,
it’s worse.
I try to focus on the words,
on the lessons,
but it’s like they’re not even real.
The paper in front of me is blank,
my thoughts are blank,
and my mind is a million miles away.
Everything spins,
and I can’t stop it.
The walls are closing in.
My chest feels tight.
But I’m still here.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.

Sitting at my desk,
the homework’s impossible.
The words blur.
The numbers make no sense.
I want to throw it all away,
but I can’t.
I want to scream,
but I can’t.
I want to run,
but my legs don’t work.
It’s like I’m stuck in cement,
and the whole world is just passing me by.

Sometimes it hits in the middle of a conversation.
I’m talking,
laughing,
but none of it matters.
The words sound empty.
The sounds are hollow.
I just want to disappear.
I just want to walk away,
but I can’t.
I can’t leave.
I can’t do anything.

It hits without warning—
at random,
and it hits hard.
One minute, I’m breathing.
The next, I’m sinking,
drowning in a darkness that has no name.
And I don’t know how to make it stop.
I don’t know how to breathe again.
I don’t know how to live
when every moment feels like I’m dying.

those are the options a boy is given at birth,
a choice between two evils—
for to be is to conform,
to choose the path of ignorance,
for to not be is to remove oneself,
to stray from the social norms,

To be is to blend,
to fade into a mass of faces that never ask questions,
to wear the uniform of comfort,
to follow the crowd without ever knowing why.
It’s to shut your eyes,
to smile and nod,
and pretend that you’ve figured it out
when the truth is you’re just drifting,
suspended in a current that leads nowhere.

But to not be—
to stand apart—
is to feel the weight of a world that cannot understand you.
It’s to be misunderstood,
labeled as lost or crazy,
but deep inside,
there’s a fire that refuses to be extinguished.
To not be is to question everything,
even your own reflection,
to challenge what is said to be true
and create your own truths,
even when it feels like you’re the only one who believes them.

And so the boy stands,
on the edge of these two choices,
each a path with its own promise,
its own cost.

To be is to live in a lie that everyone else accepts—
to wear a mask that fits just right,
but hides the person beneath.
To not be is to risk it all—
to tear away the mask,
to live in the rawness of truth,
to be exposed,
and to wonder if the world will ever be ready to see you as you are.

And so, the boy is left wondering
was he given two options at birth?
Or was the real choice always this—
to be neither,
to refuse the roles they've set before him,
and to create his own way,
somewhere between the lies and the isolation?

To decide not what the world tells him he must be,
but to question,
to carve out his own existence—
for, perhaps,
the answer lies in asking the question
again and again…
to be or not to be?

I. Left Arm
A hush in motion,
arms begin their arch —
like bridges bending
toward heartbeat harbors.
Hands become question marks,
asking: Are you real, too?

II. The Middle
Inhale meets inhale.
A spine leans into its echo.
This is not silence—
it is listening, still and warm.

III. Right Arm
Fingers finish the sentence.
Two bodies bracket a breath,
then exhale the same punctuation.mak
Let go. Not apart. Just wider.

A hug is not just arms around a body.
It’s the quiet agreement that you are here,
and I am here,
and in this small moment, we are not alone.

It is the architecture of presence—
built without blueprints,
rising from instinct,
constructed in silence.

A hug doesn’t ask questions.
It doesn’t require explanations.
It listens with skin,
responds with pressure,
and holds what cannot be spoken.

It can say “I missed you”
without syllables.
It can say “You’re safe,”
even when nothing else feels that way.

When the world is too loud,
a hug is the volume dial turned down.
When you’ve come undone,
a hug doesn’t try to fix—
it simply stays.

It can be the end of a long fight,
or the beginning of forgiveness.
It can remind you
what steady feels like,
what warm feels like,
what being wanted feels like.

And here’s the literal truth:
A hug slows the heart.
It lowers cortisol,
eases muscle tension,
and tells your nervous system
that you are not in danger.

A hug is a biological signal:
You matter.
You are not a threat.
You can rest now.

Sometimes, that’s all it takes to keep going.

Is a man to feel guilt for having options?
For liking multiple persons at once?
For not having the devotion to one,
that he feels he fails to have for any?

He asks himself this more than he’d like.
Not out loud. Just late at night,
when he’s replaying conversations
and trying to decide what his heart meant.

He likes them—really likes them.
Different people, in different ways.
One makes him laugh like no one else.
Another sees through him like glass.
A third makes him feel safe,
but he’s not sure if that’s love
or just comfort he doesn’t want to lose.

He wonders if there’s something wrong with him—
that he can feel so much
and still feel unsure.
That none of them, alone, feels like enough.
Or maybe he just isn’t ready to give
what they deserve.

He doesn’t want to lie.
He doesn’t want to lead anyone on.
But how do you tell someone,
“I care about you deeply… but not only you”
without sounding selfish, or cruel?

Sometimes, he thinks love should be simpler.
Pick one.
Hold on.
Commit.

But he’s not sure if that’s honesty or just pressure.
Not sure if he wants that, or just thinks he should.
And the guilt—it doesn’t come from doing wrong,
but from not knowing what right even is.

So he stays quiet,
hoping time will bring clarity.
Or courage.
Or maybe enough loss
to force a choice.

And sometimes,
he isn’t even sure if he actually likes them
or if it’s just a moment,
a look,
a need to feel something
that got mistaken for affection.

He keeps asking himself,
“Do I like this person,
or do I just like how they make me feel?”
“Is this a crush, or is it me filling a blank space?”
Some days he’s certain.
The next, not at all.

It’s not about playing games.
It’s not about wanting more.
It’s about wanting to be sure,
and never quite getting there.

He doesn’t want to lie.
He doesn’t want to lead anyone on.
But how do you tell someone,
“I care about you deeply… but I don’t know if it’s real”
without hurting them—or making them doubt everything?

He wishes there were a test.
A checklist.
Something objective to prove
what he feels is true.
Is that weak?
Maybe.
But he’s tired of pretending
that feelings follow rules.

A man sits alone,
the waves crashing
against his only support;
a 4 legged stool,
built solely to hold his skeleton-
but never built to bear the rest

the weight of his skin,
with every crash of the waves,
grew incrementally heavier,
until, the man, although supported by his stool
felt himself drowning
dragged by the water
into depths too dark to see the light above,

too weak to fight for the light above the ocean’s surface

A moment of calm
silence
still
he
i
alone
felt the waves
growing again ready to throw me back to despair

my 4 legged stool;
the only structure still holding me up
refused to let me drown
no matter how much i pleadingly screamed for the end
no matter how much i tried to give up
tried to drown
tried to escape

alone with the ocean
i find the value in the stool
she who keeps me afloat,
he who throws a buoy,
or teaches me to float

it is the stool with 4 legs that keeps us fighting against the ocean
so why is it that we tend to only think about our own 2?

to hold her is:

to stroll across a bridge in the midst of spring
where the cherry blossoms bloom
and their leaves are seen flitting
across the pond’s reflection

to feel the warm embrace of the suns rays
as they magnify the beauty of the
purple yellow and red
petunias daisies and roses
which lay at the waterbed

to breathe a sigh of relief
at the feeling of fresh air entering your lungs
and replacing the stale dust which once lay

to listen to the serene chirping of the birds
as they build their nests;
the rustling of a deer in the tall grass behind.

to hold her
is to know silence
not as emptiness or a punishment,
but as a gift.

I loved LA

I hated the campus
I hated the weather
I hated the hotel
I hated the drive
I hated the distance from home
I hated the judging, the scores, the results.

I hated LA
I hated LA so ******* much

yet

I loved LA

I loved the topic
I loved our rounds, our arguments, our performance
I loved the experience
I loved who I was there
I loved the new people i met, and the friends i spent time with

but more importantly,

I loved LA

getting to spend the weekend with her was a feeling beyond any other
having not to rely on fate to see her, to talk to her, to hold her, to love her
being able to wake up and know i'd spend the day with someone who cared,
listened,
comforted,
laughed,
loved.

I loved LA
and she taught me why they call it the city of angels