Between Awake & Quieting

Eyes open.

Lights low.

I’m here…

Just trying to stay.

⸻

I wake up already listening

Like danger might breathe my name

Every sound feels intentional

Every shadow feels the same

My body’s here, my mind drifts off

Like I stepped outside my skin

Watching myself from the corner

Trying to remember when

I don’t tell people when I start disappearing

I just answer less, clear my space

It’s not drama, it’s not attention

It’s a weight I can’t explain

⸻

My heart stays armed even at rest

They think silence means I’m calm

But silence is where the war goes

Where I hold it in my palms

⸻

I live between awake and gone

Not asleep, not fully on

My thoughts split like broken glass

Every second scans the past

If I go quiet, don’t assume

That I’m giving up or leaving soon

This isn’t peace, it’s how I cope

Staying here without the hope

⸻

Night bends rules of what feels real

Faces blur into the dark

Whispers crawl along the walls

Like my fear learned how to talk

I know it’s just my tired mind

But knowing doesn’t make it stop

I check the door, I check the clock

Like the room might change its thoughts

I stop picturing a future

Not because I want to die

But because imagining tomorrow

Feels heavier than goodbye

⸻

It’s not that I don’t care

It’s that caring hurts too much

Hypervigilance in my veins

Reading danger in the small stuff

⸻

If I go quiet, it’s not a threat

It’s me trying not to snap my neck

On thoughts I didn’t ask to have

On a life that keeps demanding breath

I don’t disappear—I detach

Float above what I can’t match

This isn’t weakness, it’s control

Staying present costs my soul

⸻

Suicidal thoughts aren’t a plan

They’re exhaustion talking loud

They’re the brain saying “I can’t do this”

Not “I don’t want to be around”

Some of us don’t want death

We want rest

We want the noise to loosen grip

Without us having to disappear for it

I name the room, I name the date

I remind my heart it’s late

⸻

I’m still here, even when I fade

Still breathing through the haze

This isn’t who I’ll always be

Just how I survive what happened to me

If I go quiet, check on me

Not to save me—just to see

If there’s still a part that wants to stay

Even when I can’t say

(soft)

I didn’t leave.

I didn’t quit.

I just needed the world

To stop for a minute.