---

It’s not sadness.
That would imply he still feels something.
This?
This is the space sadness leaves behind
when it fucks off,
and the only thing left
is whatever hollow shell you’ve been walking around in.

He doesn’t exist anymore.
Not really.
He’s just meat and bones drifting through the routine:
Alarm. Shower. Eat. Breathe. Sleep.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Fucking repeat
until the days blur and you can’t tell Monday from Friday
because every second tastes the same—
like ash.

The truth is, he died years ago.
Not in an obvious way—
there was no car crash, no bullet,
no hospital bed soaked in tears and morphine.
No, he went in bits and pieces.
One disappointment at a time.
One rejection. One failure.
Like someone peeling his skin off
an inch at a time
until there was nothing left but raw nerve
and a face that pretends it’s fine.

The job he hated, but couldn’t leave.
The girl who looked through him
until she didn’t even bother looking at all.
The friends who stopped calling
because how do you deal with that kind of nothingness in someone?
From everything to everyone to no one—
that’s the slow-motion car wreck of his life.

He walks into rooms now and doesn’t leave footprints.
Doesn’t leave anything.
People talk around him,
through him,
over him.
Like he’s background noise.
Like the hum of a refrigerator—
always there, never really noticed,
just… existing.

And God, he’s sick of pretending.
The fake “I’m fine” smiles.
The “Yeah, let’s grab a drink soon” texts
he knows neither of them means.
The breathing, the eating,
the fucking brain-dead monotony of staying alive
when you stopped giving a shit years ago.

The world keeps screaming at him—
Keep going! Keep fighting! Be grateful!
For what?
Living paycheck to paycheck?
Scraping himself together every morning
for a system that’s been killing him since birth?
Be fucking grateful?
For what?
Explain it to him like he’s five.

Sometimes he thinks about ending it.
Not in a poetic, bleeding, “Dear World” kind of way.
He’s not trying to make a statement.
It’s not even about wanting to die.
He doesn’t “want” much of anything.
It’s about wanting the noise to stop.
The thoughts that don’t lead anywhere,
the static inside his skull,
the goddamn ceaselessness of it—not loud but endless.
A tiny drill to the brain, day after day.
A clock that won’t wind down.

He wonders what would happen if he walked into traffic.
Not because he wants a dramatic death—fuck that.
But because at least something would happen.
At least it would matter,
if only for a split second.

But no, he doesn’t.
He just stares at the headlights from the curb
and tells himself,
“Not today. Not yet.”
Not because he’s hopeful.
Not because he thinks it’ll get better.
But because he doesn’t even have the energy to quit.
How fucked is that?
Too tired to live,
too tired to die.

You’re probably reading this thinking,
“Why doesn’t he do something about it? Just change something.”
And that’s cute.
Really.
Ever try rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
That’s what it feels like.
Except the ship’s already gone under,
and he’s just floating out here,
frozen to the bone,
waiting for the ocean to take him.

Hope?
Hope is a goddamn scam.
The kind of lie they sell to keep you on the treadmill.
“Work harder.”
“Love yourself.”
“Manifest positivity.”
Fuck you.
They don’t tell you that some people aren’t meant for the light.
That some people belong to the dark.
That some of us are born loaded with lead.
And no amount of motivational posters on Instagram
is gonna change that.

He’s not looking for answers anymore.
That’s someone else’s fairy tale.
He’s just trying to make it through the next hour.
Then the next.
Because what the fuck else is there to do?

But if you asked him what it feels like to live in his skin,
to haul this rotting corpse of a life around—
he’d just shrug and say:
“It’s like drowning…
but quieter.
No flailing, no splashing.
Just sinking.
And eventually,
you stop noticing the water.”

---