It began so quietly,
a shift I didn’t see coming—
like the way a shadow spreads,
slow and unnoticed
until you’re swallowed whole.
At first, it was just a haze,
days that felt like they were wrapped in gauze,
everything softer, muffled,
as if the world had taken a step back
and left me behind,
adrift in some forgotten space.

I’d look at my hands
and not recognize them.
Fingers, palms—alien,
like they belonged to someone else,
someone living through me,
someone borrowing my skin
and leaving me watching
from a place I couldn’t touch.
It was almost peaceful, at first,
the way nothing felt real,
like floating just above the surface
of my own life.

But then,
the edges started to fray.
People spoke to me,
and their words were colors,
shapes that didn’t make sense,
sounds too sharp, too bright,
cutting through the blur
in a way that made my bones ache.
I answered them,
I think,
but my voice felt wrong,
like it was coming from miles away,
and the words weren’t mine
but borrowed from some script
I didn’t remember learning.

I tried to shake it off,
to blink hard and clear the fog,
but the more I fought it,
the thicker it became—
like trying to wake from a dream
only to realize
the dream was waking,
and I was sinking deeper
into something I couldn’t escape.

There were moments,
fleeting and sharp,
when I’d catch my reflection
and feel a flicker of panic—
Who is she?
Who is this girl staring back at me
with hollow eyes and a face
that doesn’t feel like mine?
I’d touch my cheek,
trace the curve of my jaw,
but it was like touching someone else’s skin,
someone else's life,
and I was just a ghost
haunting the body they left behind.

The world grew distant,
not just in sight,
but in sound, in touch.
I’d brush past someone,
feel the warmth of their body,
but it didn’t reach me.
Their laughter, their voices—
they were echoes in a cave
I didn’t belong to anymore.
I smiled,
I laughed when it seemed right,
but it was all reflex,
a mask of normalcy
slipping over the hollow of my chest.

Days turned into nights,
and time became a blur,
a smeared painting of hours and minutes
that I couldn’t keep track of.
I’d lose myself in the spaces between seconds,
forgetting how I got from one room to the next,
forgetting if I’d even moved at all.
Was it Monday?
Thursday?
What did it matter?
It was all the same grey expanse,
a world I could see but not touch,
not feel.

And then there were the dreams,
the ones that felt more real
than my waking moments.
I’d dream of being awake,
of living my life,
only to wake up
and feel the crushing weight
of knowing that none of it
was real.
But the dream?
The dream felt more vivid,
more alive than anything I had
when I opened my eyes.
I began to wonder
if I was living in reverse,
if the moments of sleep
were where I truly belonged,
and waking was just the afterthought,
the shadow of a life
I wasn’t meant to claim.

I couldn’t tell anyone.
How could I explain
this slow unraveling?
How do you say
“I don’t feel real anymore”
without sounding insane?
So I stayed silent,
wrapped in the quiet dread
that clung to my skin like a second layer,
a film I couldn’t scrub off.

But inside,
something began to scream,
a low, distant wail
that built with each passing day.
The panic bubbled beneath my ribs,
tightening, squeezing,
as if the air was thinning
and my lungs forgot how to breathe.
I was trapped,
caught in a loop
of watching myself disappear
and being powerless to stop it.

And one day,
I looked in the mirror
and didn’t see myself at all.
Not even a flicker
of the girl I used to be.
Just a stranger,
a hollow thing
with eyes that didn’t shine,
a face that had forgotten how to belong
to a person.
It was too late,
too far gone
to pull myself back,
to fight the current that had dragged me under.
The fog wasn’t lifting.
It was consuming,
swallowing everything I had been,
everything I thought I could be.

I finally understood—
this wasn’t just a phase,
wasn’t just a passing storm.
This was my life now,
the endless drifting,
the constant distance
from everything and everyone,
from myself.
I was lost,
not in the world,
but in me,
in this body that no longer felt like home,
in this mind that had turned against me
and left me adrift,
alone.

And the worst part?
I’m still here,
still watching,
still waiting
for a moment of clarity
that I know will never come.
This is my reality,
and it’s slipping through my fingers
like smoke.