Hurts to live

The ceiling has memorized my breathing, a shallow, jagged rhythm in the dark. I am not a monument of tragedy— I am just a house with the windows blown out, still trying to keep the thermostat at sixty-eight. I don’t want a stage. I don’t want the bright, clinical lights of a thousand eyes asking me to "be brave." Bravery is a weight I’d like to drop on the toes of anyone who uses the word. I just want a chair. And someone in the one across from me who doesn’t try to glue the porcelain back together. Because the edges are sharp now, and if you touch them, you’ll bleed, and then I’ll have to apologize for existing in a shape that causes pain. I am tired of being my own echo. I am tired of the way my voice hits the drywall and comes back sounding like a stranger asking for directions. I am still here— dragging this heavy, fractured thing through the grocery aisles and the Tuesday rain. I am doing the work of living, but the gears are full of glass. Don’t look at me. Don't applaud the fact that I’m standing. Just sit in the silence until it isn’t a weapon. Just hear the sound of the glass grinding and don't tell me it sounds like music. Does it hurt to live? Yes, it does can I be a better version of myself yes.