I would like to think that Somewhere,
a tree once sprouted
the very day I took my first breath
its leaves reaching for light
as I learned to open my eyes.

That it grew in silence
as I laughed,
cried,
broke,
healed
marking each year
in quiet rings beneath its bark.

It never knew my name,
and I never knew its shade.
Yet still,
it stood
growing beside me
like some secret twin of time.

And that on the day I leave this world,
it will too.
cut down
as if the world knew
our stories
were meant to end together.

A life
mirrored in roots and branches,
never crossed paths
but somehow,
it would understand me
better than most ever would.

It’s not sadness,
not really.
It’s the space after the storm,
where nothing grows,
and nothing dies.

It’s not the tears,
it’s the absence of them.
Eyes dry,
but not clear.
Just blank.

You remember when you used to feel things.
Songs would split you open,
sunsets made you cry,
a laugh could save you.
Now you just nod
and pretend.

They ask,
“Are you okay?”
And you say,
“Yeah.”
Because you don’t know what else to say
when nothing’s really wrong
and everything is.

It’s like watching your life
through a fogged up window.
you’re there,
but not really.

Not sad,
not happy,
just
here.

Breathing,
but not alive.
Moving,
but not living.

And the scariest part is,
you start to get used to it.
Like numbness is safer
than pain.

Like feeling nothing
is easier
than risking
everything.

You miss
missing things.
You miss
feeling full,
or even broken.
You’d take pain
if it meant
you could still feel alive.

But for now you hope that
just maybe
something warm
will reach you
before you forget
what warmth even means.

Time doesn’t knock.
it slips in quietly,
moves the furniture of our lives
without asking.

One moment you’re laughing
in a summer you thought would never end,
and then
you’re standing in a room
that feels smaller somehow,
wondering
where all the hours went.

Time is a thief
with soft hands.
It steals slowly,
but takes everything.

It doesn’t stop for joy,
or grief,
or love that begs to last.
It simply moves forward,
never once
looking back.

We try to hold it.
in photos,
in memories,
in words spoken like spells
to make a moment stay.

But nothing stays.

Time reshapes us,
rewrites us,
reminds us that even mountains
were once dust.

And yet
within its passing,
there’s meaning.

A heartbeat is precious
because it’s borrowed.
A smile matters
because it ends.

So love now.
Forgive now.
Say the thing
you keep saving for later.

Because time waits
for no one.
But it listens
to those who truly live.

There are things
that make your heart race
for no logical reason.
A sound,
a story,
a brushstroke,
a sky full of stars.
And when you speak of it,
your voice lifts,
your eyes light
like morning windows.

That’s passion.

And not everyone gets it.
They might laugh,
or tilt their head,
not seeing the way it blooms in you  
the way it feels like
home and thunder
all at once.

But that’s okay.
It’s not theirs to hold.
It’s yours.

Because passion doesn’t ask permission.
It burns in you quietly
or wildly.
but always,
it’s honest.

It’s the thing that keeps you alive
when the world goes dim.
The thing that pulls you back to yourself
when you start to drift.
The thing you’d do
even if no one clapped.
Even if no one looked.

So let yourself burn
for what you love.
There’s nothing wrong
with the fire.
only with a world
that fears the heat.

You said it
maybe in a joke,
maybe in anger,
maybe without thinking.
but you said it.

And no matter how fast the apology came,
how quick you tried to laugh it off,
how much you claimed you didn’t mean it,
my heart
heard it anyway.

Words don’t always echo
where you throw them,
they land in people.
in soft spots they never showed you.
They burrow.
They stay.

It was just a joke,
you say,
but it wasn’t funny to the part of me
already wondering if it was true.

It was just heat of the moment,
but the burn still lingers
long after you’ve cooled down.

You may forget,
but I replay it.
quietly,
in the small hours,
wondering if that’s how you really see me
when you’re not trying to be kind.

They say words don’t wound.
but that’s only said
by those who’ve never
bled on the inside.

Because here’s the thing about words,
you can’t unsay them.
You can only hope
the person you said them to
wasn’t already breaking
before you did.

There are billions of faces
in this spinning world,
but not one
is yours.

Not one laughs like you,
thinks like you,
dreams in your exact colors.
Your voice is a note
never sung before.
not quite like this,
not quite by anyone.

You are a fingerprint
pressed gently into time.
Unrepeatable.
Unrehearsed.
The only version of your soul
this world will ever meet.

It’s wild.

To be made of stars
and blood
and memory.
but arranged in a way
that has never existed before
and never will again.

You are a once in forever echo.
And while you walk among millions,
no one can carry your story
the way you do.

And never forget:

You are not just “another.”

You are the only.

When the world goes quiet,
and the body surrenders.
where do you go?

In sleep,
we fall through time
without falling,
touch faces
we’ve never seen,
grieve things
that never happened.
And still,
we wake up aching.
Why?

What if dreams
aren’t just brain static or broken memories,
but something sacred,
an ancient language
your soul still remembers
even if you don’t?

You float.
You fall.
You fly.
You meet people
you’ve never seen,
but somehow you know them.
Places you’ve never been
feel more like home
than the house you wake up in.

What if every dream
is a message,
a mirror,
a map.
but only if you’re still enough
to listen?

What if they mean something?
What if they mean everything?

And maybe
we’ll never know for sure.
But still,
each night,
we close our eyes
and enter that strange, sacred place
as if we’re trying
to remember
something the daylight
won’t let us see.

Some say your soul leaves your body at night
and wanders.
Touches other worlds.
Crosses timelines.
Meets souls it once knew
before the name you wear now
existed.

Maybe,
what we call “sleep”
is the real awakening.

And waking up?
That’s the dream
we keep returning to.