I Don't Know How to Exist Here

[hallow matrix]

There’s a sound the ceiling makes when it’s too late to pretend I’m sleeping.
Maybe it’s just the building settling.
Maybe it’s me.

I think I’ve become part of the room—
absorbing everything.
Like a couch nobody sits on anymore.

I don’t know how to be a person in this world.
It’s all plastic smiles and quiet transactions.
Pain has to be beautiful to count.
Bleed, but make it poetic.
Suffer, but not too loudly.
Nobody wants to see the mess unless it’s on a screen.

My pain isn’t made for reels or captions.
It’s the slow kind.
The kind that settles in your throat and makes your voice crack
just saying your own name.

Sometimes I dream of leaving.
Just…
disappearing.
No drama. No scene.
Just one morning, I walk toward the trees
and forget to come back.

I think maybe the forest would keep me.
Or spit me out.
But at least it wouldn’t lie to me.

People want pieces of you they can hold without burning themselves.
They ask you to be real—
but not that real.
They want tears, but not the story behind them.

I’ve been called too much
by people who never even stayed long enough to know what enough meant.

Still, I write.
I leave pieces of myself in corners
no one checks.

Not hoping to be saved.
Just hoping that maybe one day
someone will find one
and understand.

If you’re reading this,
don’t tell me it’s going to be okay.
Don’t tell me you see me.
Just… don’t walk away.

Sit with it.
With me.
Let the silence hold what words can’t.

That’s all I’ve ever wanted anyway.

[chilly kernel]

You had a really really great hook in the beginning. I'm amazed. I like how you described everything around you, as if you're slowly becoming one with the room you're in, slowly during into just one of the objects around you. It creates such a stilling, numbing tone and it's beautiful.

I love the lines "bleed, but make it poetic // suffer, but not too loudly // nobody wants to see the mess unless it's on a screen." Wow. It's like pain has to be performative for it to be valid.

And your other stanza with the lines, "people want pieces of you they can hold without burning themselves" and "they want tears, but not the story behind them" This is phenomenal wording. People's love feels so conditioned to only what they feel like they can handle. And that hurts because you know you could never minimize your real pain enough for them.

And the ending concludes it perfectly. "Let the silence hold what words can't // That's all I've ever wanted anyway." This was so heartfelt, and so incredibly relatable. Great job!!

[quiet zephyr]

Absolutely no words