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Before you dive into this piece, there’s something I’d like to share with you:
What you’re about to read aren’t just words on a page—they’re a fragment of me. This writing came to life during a time that carved itself deeply into who I am, and in the process, it’s become something I’ll forever carry close to me.
It’s raw, it’s unfiltered, and it holds nothing back.
Each line traces the emotions I’ve lived through—the highs, the heartbreaks, the quiet moments, and the chaos. So please, take your time reading this, breathe between the lines. Let it settle into you slowly.
If it speaks to you, even in a whisper, know that you’re not alone.
This is more than a story. It’s a heartbeat laid bare. And if you see even a flicker of yourself in these words, I hope it brings the kind of comfort that reminds you: you are seen, you are felt, you are loved, and above all, you are still here.
~
At first, I barely noticed it.
A hairline crack crawling across glass—
subtle, innocent, easy to ignore.
I didn’t think minds untouched by life’s sharper edges could splinter so easily.
But even the most flawless mirrors will shatter
when pressure learns where to strike.
It began with tiredness—
not the kind sleep could touch,
but the kind that curls behind your eyes
and settles deep in your bones.
A quiet weight, like the air itself had thickened
and turned against me.
I told myself it was nothing.
Just stress. Just a long week.
Just hold on until the weekend, when I could reset.
But the weekend came.
And the weight stayed.
It crept in slow, like smoke under a door—
soft, silent, suffocating.
My thoughts thickened, syrupy and congealed.
I’d catch myself staring at the wall for hours.
Not thinking. Not feeling. Just…
drifting.
I shaped my emptiness into a mask—
familiar, practiced, distant.
My laugh still rang,
on time, melodic.
But inside, it echoed—
bouncing off walls where joy used to live.
I texted hollow pleasantries,
smiley faces like charms to ward off concern.
I showed up—birthdays, work, dinners.
Always tidy. Always appropriate.
Meanwhile, the real me lay curled in some unreachable attic of my chest—
a version of myself lost in echo.
A ghost inside my own skin.
Then came the drop.
No fanfare. No gasp.
Just a morning drained of colour.
I sat on the edge of my bed,
watching dust float in silence,
and realised I couldn’t find a single reason
to stand up.
That thought alone should have scared me.
But even fear was too far away—
muffled beneath the tar that filled my limbs,
my lungs,
the hollow space behind my ribs.
I was a silhouette pressed beneath glass—
flat, silent, untouchable.
My room became a mausoleum.
Clothes stiffened where they fell.
Plates towered, their contents fossilizing.
Dust smothered every surface—
even the photo of me:
laughing, free, weightless.
Now, I was drowning—
not the frantic kind,
but the slow sinking.
Like forgetting that water wasn’t air
and letting it fill you,
because resisting would mean admitting how far you’d fallen.
Once, I tried to speak.
“I think something’s wrong,” I said—
my voice brittle, foreign.
Their eyes didn’t leave their phone.
A hand on my arm.
A smile, thin as tissue.
“We all have bad days.”
I wanted to scream:
This isn’t a day. This feels like the end.
But I didn’t.
I smiled.
The mannequin smile—
all teeth, no flame.
Then came the stillness.
Not peace.
Not healing.
Just… the end of movement.
Like the hush after a door clicks shut.
Like a breath that never comes back.
There was comfort in the idea of rest.
Not sleep.
Just… stopping.
To become mist.
To evaporate through the cracks—
gently, without sound.
No more stitching myself together with frayed thread.
No more pretending to be whole.
I wrote a note.
Ink pooled at the pauses.
No explanations.
Only softness.
My last breath on paper.
I tucked it under a teacup
still ringed with yesterday’s coffee,
and opened the window.
The night air kissed my skin—
crisp, full of endings.
The stars shimmered like frost on a winter’s morning.
And I wondered if maybe, once,
I had been one of them—
a girl who burned bright enough to be remembered.
The windowsill felt cool beneath my bare feet.
Below, a train cried out—
its voice lost to distance.
I thought of ink dissolving in puddles,
of leaves tumbling into storm drains,
of all the ways small things vanish
without anyone noticing.
Could I slip away too?
The world carried on around me:
a dog barking,
the fridge humming,
a neighbour coughing in the corridor.
Life continued,
even as the air around me pressed tighter.
And in all of this,
something uncoiled.
Not peace—
but something near it.
Relief.
Like unclenching a fist
I didn’t know I’d been making.
Like letting go of a burden.
I didn’t think about who would find the note.
Or how they’d feel.
Grief had moved through me
and moved on—
left me bent in quiet ways
no one would ever see.
I had no more questions.
No more anger.
Just quiet.
A hush.
A slow, soft fade.
I looked around the room one last time—
its clutter, its silence,
the shell of a story I no longer belonged to.
Not leaving.
Just… unlatching the weight of staying.
And so, I stepped forward.
I became the breath between heartbeats.
The pause after a final note.
The moment before a match is struck
and the dark briefly listens.
No crash.
No cry.
Only drift—
a feather settling
after the wind is gone.
And for the first time
in forever,
I felt it—
not joy.
not sorrow.
just peace.
Quiet, clean, whole.
The kind that asks for nothing.
The kind that stays forever.
~
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