ALMOST ENOUGH

Beneath the weight of borrowed dreams, I sit in a room that isn't mine, surrounded by walls that echo the silence of a thousand unanswered questions. The clock ticks louder than my thoughts, each second reminder of deadlines that loom like shadows, stretching longer as the night grows colder. I drink coffee that tastes like exhaustion, it's bitterness a familiar companion, while my books lie open, pages filled with words that blur into a sea of uncertainty. I think of the expectations piling up, numbers on a screen that grow faster than my understanding of this life I'm building -- or maybe unraveling. My phone buzzes with messages I can't answer, friends I haven't seen in weeks, family I call only to say, "I'm fine, just busy," because how do you explain the ache of being stretched so thin you forget what it feels like to be whole? I stare at the ceiling, wondering if this is what it means to grow -- to trade sleep for stress, joy for grades, and time for a future that feels like a mirage, always just out of reach. And in the quiet, I wonder if anyone else feels this way, or if I'm alone in this room, carrying a weight I don't know how to name. - Aadarsh.