I laughed - not for likes,
but because the sky was kind
and the breeze felt honest.

I wore comfort,
not costume,
and danced without a soundtrack.

No mirrors.
No filters.
Just me,
at ease in my skin,
and joy
quiet as a secret,
loud as my heart.

You don’t notice it at first.
Not really.
Life keeps you busy with noise, with dreams, with the next thing.

But then one day,
you cross an invisible threshold.
There’s no signpost, no celebration
just the quiet erosion of what once mattered.

The body falters first.
Not dramatically - no, it’s more insidious than that.
You wake up sore from sleep.
You get winded climbing stairs you once ran.
You start measuring your days in energy, not hours.

Then come the dreams
the ones you clung to like anchors.
They begin to dissolve.
Some shrink into hobbies, others vanish with a sigh.
And the ones that remain?
Too fragile to chase, too old to birth.

Your beliefs shift too.
Not because they were wrong,
but because the world keeps insisting you make room for things
you once swore you’d never tolerate.

You adjust.
You settle.
You survive.

But the worst part
the part no one warns you about
is the people.

One by one,
they begin to leave.

Some give you time.
They let you prepare your goodbye.
Others vanish mid-conversation,
leaving cups half full and promises unfinished.

And what’s cruel is not just that they’re gone
it’s that nothing fills their space.
You try.
You pretend.
You build new connections like patchwork quilts.
But nothing fits quite right.

Because love, real love, isn’t replaced.
It’s carried
as ache,
as memory,
as absence you learn to walk around like a piece of furniture in the dark.

You keep going, of course.
What else can you do?
You make tea.
You water the plants.
You smile at strangers and nod at the sky like it still owes you something.

But deep down, you know:
This is what it means to age
not the wrinkles, not the gray.
It’s the slow, silent disappearing
of everything that once made you feel
alive.

The porch light clicks off behind me—
no ceremony,
no words wrapped in warmth,
just the hush of a door
never meant to stay open.

A moth dances in the dark.
I watch it,
wishing for wings
that don’t tear
in the cold.

My feet know this ache.
They’ve felt it before—
sidewalks splitting like dry lips,
a sky too wide
for someone so small.

I carry silence
in the crook of my arms,
like a child that won’t
stop crying.

The moon
presses its white face
against the windshield.
It doesn’t ask me to leave.

Every hour is a question
with no safe answer.
Where do I go
when even the night
runs out of room?

I’m tired
of learning the weight of keys
that don’t belong to me—
of knocking
on almosts.

If I disappear,
will the world blink?

Or will it just
keep driving?

There's a firework inside my head
Pulling me away from tasks
Begging me to rest
Slamming the doors to others

Maybe it's "me time" once again
Just me, and the quiet of being alone

BY A BOY WHO CHOSE SOLITUDE

I never craved penthouses kissing the clouds,
nor mansions where silence feels cold.
I worked through storms,
not to rise above the world—
but to step away from its roar.

All I ever wanted
was a wooden hut in the hills—
where rivers laugh like children,
where the wind hums forgotten songs,
where rain feels like the sky washing off
what hurt the most.

The sun…
a father’s hand on my shoulder.
The moon…
a mother watching over dreams.

In cities, I wandered,
craving their lights,
but never their noise.
I loved them—
the quiet ones, the old ones,
where people moved like whispers.

But even there,
I couldn’t find the silence
that lets you hear yourself think.
So I built it—
in my mind first,
then in the earth beneath my feet.

Why?

Because I needed a place
where my voice echoes back to my ears,
so I know I still exist.
So I know I still feel.

I am tired of competition.
Of proving.
Of performing.
I want a life like a straight line—
not because it's boring,
but because it's honest.

And love?
I stopped chasing it.
Because no one holds hearts like I do.
And mine—
it’s not made for games.

It's fragile.
Like sunlight on still water.
It breaks quietly.

So I gave it back to the only hands
that never dropped it—
my own.

In solitude,
I found my teacher.
My shelter.
My self.

Now I know what I want.
Now I know who I am.
And when I sit, alone, under the rain,
I don’t feel empty—

I feel home.

Hey,
I read what you wrote.
And I want you to know—
Every word you sent out…
they weren’t just paragraphs.
They were proof that you were alive.
That even in your hardest moments, you still chose to feel.
And that’s something brave people do.

I know it might not have felt like it at the time.
Maybe you thought you were being too much,
too vulnerable,
too open.

But can I tell you something?
There’s nothing “too much” about being human.

You wrote when you loved.
You wrote when you were breaking.
You wrote when you had nothing else left but your own honesty.
And that’s not weakness.
That’s how you kept yourself from fading out completely.

So thank you.
For every message you sent into the void.
For every “I’m trying”
and even every “I give up.”
Because every single one was you choosing expression over silence.

And now?
Now you’re here.
Still breathing.
Still writing.
Still surviving in your own quiet, relentless way.

One day, you’ll look back and see—
those paragraphs weren’t cries for help.
They were stepping stones.
Each one taking you closer to the version of you who’s healed,
who’s glowing,
who made it.

And when you get there—
you’ll read those words again,
not with regret,
but with pride.

Because even when life didn’t hold you gently,
you still held onto yourself.

That’s not weakness.
That’s strength.
And it’s still with you.
Even now.

So don’t stop writing.
Even if it’s messy.
Even if no one replies.

Because sometimes… the most important person who needs to hear you
is you.

A gust of frozen air passes by.
Sand and silt submit to air.
The ground is barren and bare.
The sky is quite.

Frost creeps through stone.
Warped whistling is abound.
Distant wolves howl.

Atop a frozen lake I stand.
My clothing ***** to the wind.

The ice breaks.