my soul doesn't want to be inside this body anymore, my joints creak and my limbs ache and my eyelids weigh heavy against the pull of gravity. i could sleep for so long and be mistaken for a corpse. one with bloodshot eyes decorated with dark purple bruises underneath. one with freezing cold fingertips, numb to the touch. one with the blank stare of a person who'd never been all there. i ache to be free, to float among the stars and galaxies as a collection of molecules and elements. it's a freedom i'll never know, not in my fragile and breakable human skin.

i wonder if i'm trapped in my own personal hell. thinking with a brain that hates itself. i exist, minutes pass and turn to hours, days to years, and yet it all feels like the same giant knot overtaking my weak stomach. all i can do is wonder if the next life will take more mercy on my paper-thin soul.