Its the answer I’ve rehearsed,
The shield I raise without thinking.
Three words stacked like bricks between me and the world.
Because if I say more,
If I let the cracks show.
They might fall through.
And then I’d have to explain
why my heart feels heavy,
Why my mind wont stop spinning,
Why the silence inside me is louder than any noice outside.

So I say,
“I’m fine”
Like a broken record,
Like a lie I tell myself first.

It’s easier this way,
to tuck the storm away,
To hide the pain behind a smile,
To keep the floodgates closed.

But sometimes, in the quiet, when no one’s watching those words echo back at me.
A hollow, Empty promise that doesn’t mean a thing.
Because inside,
Im not fine.
Not really.

But the world doesn’t need to know that.
So I say it again,
Softly,
As prayer,
As a lie,

“I’m fine.”

We never fought.
No final words,
No goodbye wrapped in drama.
Just distance, creeping in like a fog until I couldn’t see you anymore.

Sometimes I wonder if you still think of me the times I still think of you,
Of us.
How we were when everything was the way it was before we stopped talking all of a sudden.

Just like that, in a single heartbeat, everything is gone.
Al the memories we made,
All the sacrifices,
All the plans,
The promises,
The ups and downs.
Are all gone, just like that.
Back to strangers again.

I wonder if things remind you of us the way they remind me of us.
A place,
A smell,
A song.
They pull me back without warning
To laughter that echoed too loud,
The promises made on sidewalks,
To a friendship that once felt like forever.

No matter how far we drift,
No matter how quiet it’s become,
Our friendship will forever have a special place in my heart.
Even though we don’t talk anymore.

I still think of you.
Do you still think of me?
I hope you do.
I miss you,
I miss us.

Music isn’t just noice, it’s a language my soul already speaks.
The first thing that ever made sense when nothing else did.
I don’t just listen to it.
I feel it.
Let it wrap around my ribs like a lifeline when my mind starts drowning itself at 2 a.m.

It silences the thoughts that won’t shut up.
It fills the room so my fear can’t echo back at me.

When the world is too much, music makes it just enough.
Some songs hit like memories I never lived.
Others sound like truths I never said out loud.
They make me cry without warning,
Smile without reason,
Feel something when I’ve been numb for days.

It connects us.
Strangers across oceans singing the same lyrics with tears in their eyes.
People who’ve never met still get it,
Because the melody said what words never could.

Music is my safe place.
My freedom.
My heartbeat when mine is off-beat.

I need it
Without it,
I’m just static

I tell my dad I can’t go back,
Moms place breaks me down.
Fights that echo,
Words that cut too deep,
A storm that never ends.

I’m tired,
Mentally, emotionally drained by the same old  battles that never find an end.

But when I ask him to stay longer, to just give me a little more time where I can breath,
But it’s too much to ask.
He shrugs, says,
“I can’t do much, I’m trying me best, but me and her. We need time too.”
And just like that I’m stuck between a home that feels like a cage and another that won’t open its doors wide enough.

Moms apartment isn’t home,
It’s walls too small,
A  room I have to share,
A silence filled with tension.
Dad’s place still holds my memories, my quiet corners, my space to be me.
But even there, I’m not free to stay as long as I need.

I hate going back to her.

But I’m not allowed to stay here.
And in this in-between,
I’m losing pieces of myself that no one notices

because it’s easier to pass me along
That to hold me close.

Everyone else sleeps.
The world goes still.
And for once, I can breath.
No noice.
No questions.
No expectations.
Just me, and the soft hum of the world that finally stopped shouting.

I don’t want to sleep.  
And I can’t, anyway.

My thoughts are too loud,
My body too wired,
Like I was made for the hours everyone else forgets.

Daylight feels wrong, too bright, too demanding.
But night wraps around me like a blanket I actually want to wear.
This is when I come alive.
When silence isn’t empty but safe.

I scroll through nothing, lie in bed with my eyes wide open, and tell myself I’ll sleep soon.
But I never do.

I’ve finically stopped fighting it, this strange rhythm, this life between midnight and 5 a.m.
I think I was made for it.
For the stillness,
For the quiet company of my own thoughts,
For being alone but not lonely.

Let them have the day.
I’ll keep the night.

There’s always something I should be doing.
Homework,
Laundry,
Cleaning my room.

But I blink at the ceiling
and whisper
“I’ll do it later”

It’s not that I don’t care.
It’s not that I don’t want to try.
I just don’t have the energy to carry my own weight today.
Tomorrow, maybe.
Maybe.

Deadlines come and go like passing trains I never catch, And I sit on the platform, Telling myself,
“The next one, I’ll get on the next one”

My phone buzzes,
Messages pile up,
Reminders go off like alarms in a burning building.
I mute them all.

I’ll do it later.

It’s not just laziness.
It’s not rebellion.
It’s just this fog, this endless, heavy fog that wraps around my limbs and Makes every task feel like a mountain.

The guilt hits at night, when everything’s still and there’s no one left to lie to but myself.

I promise ill change,
I promise I’ll try.

But in the morning,
I wake up and,
“I’ll do it later”
Is the first thought.
My first lie.

And the worst part is,
I’m tired of running from things I never even started.

They say these are the best years, but all I feel is tired.
Waking up too early,
dragging my body through halls and deadlines,
learning things that feel like weights instead of wings.

School drains me.
Not just my energy,
But my spirit.
My time.
My youth.
Gone to schedules and rules, to doing it ‘the right way’ which really just means their way.

Born.
School.
Work.
Die.
Is that it?
Is that really the blueprint I was handed?
Grow up too fast,
make choices too big,
all while being told what to think,
How to act,
What succes looks like.

But what if i don’t want that?
What if I want more than just surviving in someone else’s structure?
I wasn’t born to be a gear in a machine I never chose.

I want to live,
Not just exist.