This weight stays with me. It doesn’t sit on my shoulders—it settles deeper, somewhere no one sees. I’m not asking to die. I just want to disappear. Quietly. Slip out of reach, far from the constant buzz of people trying to fix what they’ve never really heard. They love me—I don’t doubt that. But their love doesn’t touch the part of me that hurts the most. It’s the part under the surface, where everything feels muted and sharp at once. I laugh when I need to. I answer messages. I show up. But the truth is, I barely hold together some days. I walk through noise like I’m made of smoke. The pressure doesn’t ease. It’s just there. Always. I keep going—not because I believe in anything—but because movement feels easier than explaining what stillness would mean.

This thing comes and goes as it pleases. I have no say in when or how hard it hits. It wraps itself around my chest and waits, and I carry it like a second spine. I’ve thought about leaving—not dramatically, not loudly—but fading, like dust. I think about the faces that would cry, and how they’d search for answers I don’t even have. That’s the cruelest part: I don’t know what’s wrong. I only know it hurts. If my light dims entirely, I won’t go chasing darkness. I’ll just lie still. Let the body slow. Let the thoughts stop tapping. Let time forget me. Maybe no one’s to blame. Maybe I just never found the right shape to live in. I feel safer in the world I made in my head. It’s soft. Familiar. I wish it were real. In that place, I fly. I fall. I run. I fly again. The cycle never ends, but at least it’s mine.

I have two names. One for strangers, one for those who got close. But if you call me by the name from home—the one soft with history, the one that still holds warmth—I’ll know it’s me you see. The real me. And in that moment, maybe I won’t drift. Maybe I’ll stay. So say my name. Call it like it matters. It might be the only thread I have left.

You can love me as long as you want to. For as long as I’m here. Maybe even longer, if someone else ever takes your place. But I need you to know: there’s a chance I won’t make it. Not out of choice, but exhaustion. I’m in pain. Real pain. And I don’t know how long I can stand upright with it. But if you stay—just for a little while longer—while there’s still breath in me, I’ll be grateful. Not healed, but grateful. Maybe the idea of death is the only thing that’s ever felt like relief. Like something I can finally rest inside. If you’re willing to wait with me for ten more years, maybe I’ll surprise both of us. And if you can’t, I’ll understand. That just tells me love was never a place I was meant to stay in. Even though I’ve felt it—maybe with someone before, maybe with you—my love, my almost. Please don’t be sad. Not for this. Not for me.