I wake before the sun, though I don't remember sleeping.The ceiling above me is pale and blank, like it's waiting for me to write my failures across it. My body feels heavy. My heartbeat is already loud—too loud—as if it climbed out of my chest and now bangs on my skull, begging to be heard.
I lie there, still, like I'm trying to become part of the bed.If I don't move, maybe time won't move either.
But even in stillness, everything inside me shakes.
My phone vibrates. Not an emergency, not a message—just the world reminding me it wants something from me again. University schedules, unfinished assignments, group projects with people who call themselves friends because it's easier than saying "strangers I sit beside for four years."
I roll onto my side. My sweat has already soaked into the sheets.I hate that I'm afraid before anything even happens.I hate that this fear arrives earlier than the sunrise.
When I finally stand, my legs don't feel like mine.More like two sticks someone taped to my hips, hoping I'd pretend to be human.
My parents' voices echo from memory, not from the hallway.
"If you play around, how are you going to survive in university?""Lazy.""Useless.""Other kids can do it. Why can't you?"
Even when they're not here, their words stand guard over my life like prison officers.Even when I was a kid—when laughter still came out of me without permission—they hated seeing me happy. As if my joy was a sin I should apologize for.
They said the world would punish me if I didn't learn discipline, so they punished me first.
Maybe they thought they were protecting me.
Maybe they just didn't know any other method.
I dress slowly, like each piece of clothing weighs five kilograms.
Out the door. Down the stairs. Into the air that already feels too sharp for breathing.
Walking to the bus stop drains me more than any exam.Human faces blur into one another, but their presence presses against me—heavy, loud even when they don't look my way.
I keep my distance from them.Because I'm convinced that if I walk alone, something terrible will happen.But being near them…makes me feel like I'm an impostor pretending to belong to a species that will never choose me back.
At the bus shelter, I sit.The metal bench freezes the back of my thighs through my pants.I place my palms on my knees. They tremble slightly.
I stare at the road.Cars pass like thoughts I wish I didn't have—fast and never slowing down for me.
And then I imagine the place I want to be instead.The place that never existed but feels more real than the world in front of me.
A flat field of grass.Dark sky.Rain falling softly.Wind blowing a cold melody through the air.And me, lying there with eyes half-closed as a piano piece—"Drowning Love"—plays somewhere just out of sight.One last song before one last breath.
But fantasy collapses the moment the bus arrives.
I get on because there's no choice.And that's the worst part: every day feels like a long corridor filled with decisions that are not truly mine.
The bus rattles as it moves.I watch the city blur through the window.Everyone else seems built for survival.I'm built for breaking quietly.
A group of students laugh behind me—one of them bumps into my seat.My whole body tenses.Not because they touched me, but because their happiness reminds me of who I used to be.
The kid who tried to make everyone happy, even if it meant breaking pieces of himself.The kid who tried to absorb others' sadness so they wouldn't have to carry it.The kid who got punished anyway.
Maybe that was the first time I realized kindness isn't a shield—it's bait.
The bus slows near my stop.My heart starts pounding again, loud enough to drown out the engine.
University waits for me like a maze I don't know how to walk through.Every hallway.Every assignment.Every accidental eye contact.Every step that demands energy I don't have.
And as I stand from my seat, my legs shake again.But I force myself off the bus.Because that's what living has become—forcing.
My first breath of outside air feels like a weight instead of relief.
And somewhere deep inside me, a truth whispers:
"I don't know how much longer I can keep pretending that I'm okay."