“The Cost of Being Alive”

We were told to run. So we did — barefoot on broken glass, eyes fixed on the paper sky, hearts starving but pockets full. We called it ambition, but it was hunger — a hunger that ate everything. Love. Time. Sleep. Even the small peace that lived behind our ribs. We sold our laughter for digits, our youth for a paycheck. The mirror stopped showing faces, only exhaustion shaped like success. Now we plant fake forests in front of dead ones. We smile for the lenses, pretending redemption tastes like performance. We wear suits to hide the rot, speak hope with plastic tongues, while the earth weeps quietly beneath our feet. We photograph the illusion — green trees, blue skies, all borrowed from memories. And when the cameras flash, truth burns a little more. The road ends. The money falls away. The applause fades into a hum — empty, endless, indifferent. We stand at the edge, holding everything that means nothing. The trees are gone. The breath feels heavier. The silence, cruel. And in that last heartbeat, we finally understand: we never lived — we only consumed. — blackout