The Vaccum
WARNING
Read at your own risk.
To the one who learned how to say “I’m fine” so well that even your own voice believed it.
To the one who outgrew people they once thought would stay forever.
To the one who reread old conversations like unfinished prayers.
To the one who watched their reflection become a stranger and never knew the exact moment it changed.
To the one who apologised for taking up space and to the one who learned how to take up less of it.
To the one who laughed the loudest in the room, only to lie awake at night with thoughts too heavy for their age.
To the one who tried harder.To the one who stopped trying.To the one who no longer remembers when either happened.
To the one who sat in crowded classrooms and still felt unbearably alone.
To the one who keeps old messages, old photographs, old versions of themselves as proof that they once knew who they were.
I hope you meet them again.
And if these pages feel familiar if they touch something you taught yourself not to feel
close this book.
Or don’t.
Some things ache before they heal.
CH-1 THE VACUUM
Some people are never the first choice.They become the space people end up in.
I say I.
But who am I, really?
Every time I try to look closer, my thoughts don’t stay still. They drift quietly, like they’re afraid of what they might find if they stop.
They find roads.
Not one. Not certain. Many.
And mine always feels like the one at the edge of being chosen.
The one people don’t look at first.The one they don’t walk toward when everything is still possible.
I watch others move forward like direction was written for them like they were never unsure, never paused, never questioned.
They don’t hesitate. They don’t look back.
They belong to their roads.
And if somewhere along the way they lose them if they stumble, if they wander, if nothing feels right anymore
they turn.
And somehow, they find mine.
Not because it was the one they wanted.
But because it was still there.
Quiet.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
The school bell doesn’t feel like a beginning or an ending.
It just feels like sound.
A routine signal that tells us to exist in a certain way for a certain number of hours.
Classrooms fill quickly after it. Chairs scrape. Bags fall onto desks. Pages open like everyone already knows what today is supposed to be.
I follow like I always do.
Not behind. Not ahead.
Just… among.
There are mornings I tell myself today will feel different.
Not better. Just different enough to notice.
But most days don’t change shape just because you want them to.
Teacher enters. Names are called. Answers are expected. Silence is sometimes rewarded, sometimes ignored.
I answer when I’m asked.
I exist when I’m needed.
And then I become background again.
There are things you don’t notice when they happen. Only when you remember them later.
Like that group formations in class....
No announcement. No confusion. Just movement natural, effortless as if everyone already knew where they belonged except me.
Names are exchanged quickly, comfortably, like they carry weight in some places and none in others.
I stand there for a second too long.
Not lost.
Just… not called.
One group is already full. Another already laughing. Someone’s name is spoken before mine even has space in the sentence.
And then the moment passes.
So I become whatever space is left.
Not chosen.
Just adjusted into.
I remember walking toward that group.
Not because I wanted to.
But because standing alone for too long starts to feel like a question everyone else already knows the answer to.
So I smile.
Not too much. Not too little.
Just enough to not feel like I am interrupting anything.
And they move on.
As if I had always been there.
Or never needed to be noticed at all.
Attendance lists exist too.
Small moments where names are spoken into existence one by one.
I wait for that tiny pause before mine.
That fragile silence where I never know if I am included or forgotten.
Most times, my name comes.
Just later.
Just softer.
Like even my presence has learned not to interrupt.
Lunch breaks are the loudest kind of silence.
Everyone talks at once, but not always to everyone.
Sometimes you sit in a circle and still feel like a corner.
Sometimes laughter happens near you, not with you.
And you don’t even notice when you stop being part of the center.
It just shifts.
Slowly.
Without asking.
Once, I caught myself staring at the mirror longer than I meant to.
Not because I didn’t recognize my face.
But because I was trying to find what others see when they look past it.
Was something missing?
Or was I just not enough to hold attention for long?
The reflection didn’t answer.
It never does.
It just stays.
Still.
Unchanged.
As if even I have learned not to fully see myself anymore.
I was never the quiet one.
I was just the loudest in places no one thought to listen.
In parts of me no one ever reached.
The version of me that exists only in pauses.
There is a strange kind of loneliness in being surrounded by people who don’t realize you are slowly learning how to disappear.
Not in body.
But in place.
In priority.
In thought.
In the way no one thinks your name first.
And I think that is what I never had a word for.
Not sadness.
Not anger.
Not even loneliness.
Something quieter.
A space inside me that kept waiting for something that never arrived.
A room with no sound.
A presence that felt like absence.
A vacuum.
Maybe that’s what I am.
Not empty.
Just… not filled by anyone who stayed long enough to notice.
And I start to wonder…
Was I ever someone’s beginning?
Or only the place they arrived when every other road refused them?
Outside the classroom, life keeps moving like nothing pauses to think.
People laugh. Argue. Run. Forget.
Everything continues without hesitation.
And I am still here, trying to understand where I exist inside all of it.
Not lost.
Not found.
Just… continuing.
And if I was never the first choice…
I wonder if I was ever a choice at all.
