Dark colors

there are days

i sit inside my own head

like a classroom after the bell.

chairs crooked,

lights still humming,

no one coming back for me

and i ask

what do i want from this life?

the question echoes

like a teacher who already knows

i won’t answer

i used to beg for these days back

hallways, lockers,

the sound of something normal

now i watch them fall apart

in slow motion

period three becomes a ghost

a seat with my name on it

that no one expects to be filled

and they ask me.

do you want a future?

and for a second

the smallest, quickest second.

everything goes quiet

and the truth

slips out of me like breath in winter

no

i am a collection of almosts

almost showing up

almost caring

almost someone worth staying for

they call them mistakes

like they are small things

but they stack

and stack

and stack

until they look like a person

i don’t recognize

so i run

into noise

into people who don’t ask questions

into anything that makes the silence stop

fights that burn out by morning

nights that blur into each other

choices that feel like falling

but slower

and i tell myself

i’m fine with this

because it’s easier

to destroy something

than to fix it

there are days

i don’t leave my bed

the world keeps moving

without asking where i went

and i let it

because caring

feels heavier than disappearing

but the worst part

isn’t the sadness

it’s the feeling i can’t name

not anger

not grief

something colder

like standing in a dark room

knowing something is there

but never seeing it

just feeling it breathe

when you do

i’ve felt it since i was small

back in that house

where safety was a word

no one taught me how to spell

it followed me out

like a shadow that learned my name

and even now

in places that are supposed to be better

it still presses against my ribs

like it belongs there

sometimes

i talk out loud

to no one

to someone

to pieces of myself

that only exist when i’m breaking

and in those moments

truth spills easier

tears come faster

like i finally stop pretending

i’m not the one hurting me

i don’t know how to build a life

no one handed me the instructions

no one showed me

how to hold a future

without dropping it

i learned more from a screen

than from a classroom

and even that

feels like half a language

so i sit here

half taught

half gone

half hoping

wondering

if i’ve already missed the moment

where things were supposed to change

because i’ve been invisible

to myself

for so long

i don’t know

what it would look like

to come back

but sometimes.

quietly,

like a thought i don’t trust

i wonder

if there’s a version of me

still sitting in that empty classroom

waiting

not for a perfect answer

just

for me

to show up.