What day is it?
Tuesday?
Wednesday?
Could be April. Who’s to say.
Time doesn’t just slip when you stop sleeping.
It rots.
Hours smear into each other,
the same hollow ache stamped through them like a watermark.
Four hours. Eight. A whole fucking day.
Doesn’t matter.
Chunks of life vanish.
I’m at the sink,
then suddenly at my desk.
The dishes are done.
No memory of doing them.
Every morning feels like being dragged out of a wet grave,
shoved into a meat suit,
and told, “Smile. You’re on.”
Curtains up.
It’s showtime.
A functional corpse with good grammar.
My skull hums with pressure,
like something is clawing at my eye socket,
trying to get out.
And still,
I get up.
Because they need me.
My time.
My presence.
My brain.
They want me to fix the thing,
hold the thing together,
steady them until they can breathe again.
Nobody sees what it costs.
Nobody asks what’s left when I do.
I want… oh god, I want
someone to put a hand on my shoulder and say,
“Don’t get up. I’ve got you.”
But nobody ever does.
They just keep taking.
Sometimes, lying in the dark,
I imagine disappearing.
Not dying.
Just… stepping out of the frame.
The world still spinning.
Everyone still laughing.
But me… gone.
It’s not just my body that’s tired.
It’s the rope inside me,
the one that kept all my pieces tied together.
Thread by thread, it’s fraying,
the part that used to care,
the part that used to hope,
the part that thought someone might notice if I went under.
And I don’t know what happens when it snaps.
Maybe it already has.
Who knows?
Maybe I just keep smiling
like the noose isn’t there.
When the body forgets how to rest,
the mind forgets how to lie.
—
I remember one night.
Seven episodes of House M.D. until 4 a.m.
Remember none of them.
Except the one with the coma patient.
And all I could think was,
Lucky bastard.
—
He’s venting again.
Something about his co-worker.
“Piece of shit,” he said.
“Totally ruined my week.”
I nod. Uh-huh. Yeah.
But my brain is somewhere else.
Days keep bleeding into each other,
nights into mornings,
until I’m watching him talk
and I can’t tell if I’ve been awake for two days or two weeks.
My hands are tight around the coffee cup.
I don’t remember picking it up,
but now I’m clenching it like it’s the last thing keeping me here.
His voice drones on. Boss trouble now.
The hum in my skull is getting louder
and my chest tightens,
the same way it did the night she left me.
Breathing shallow.
Vision tunneling,
not blacking out, just narrowing.
My phone keeps buzzing.
Which means my watch keeps buzzing.
For a second, I hope it’s her.
It never is.
She left like it was noble.
Like reclaiming herself made her strong.
She never looked back to see what she left in pieces.
Never asked how deep the cut went.
Just said she hoped I’d be okay.
Fuck that.
I’m not okay.
Haven’t been in a long time.
He’s talking about his girlfriend now.
Something about a tantrum.
“She made me sleep on the couch,” he says.
Oh, I miss that word.
Sleep.
Lucky bastard.
Every sound in the café sharpens:
the clink of a spoon,
the hiss of the espresso machine,
the baby crying three tables over,
all of it drilling into my brain.
My jaw aches… I’ve been grinding my teeth without noticing.
My phone buzzes again.
Names flash on the screen.
Friends, ex-clients, people who “just need five minutes.”
Every vibration feels like a chisel tapping on the glass,
checking if I’m still here,
still available.
I am so fucking tired,
of being strong,
of being good,
of being useful.
I hate that I still want someone to ask,
“Are you okay?”
and mean it.
And wait for the real answer.
But I know they won’t.
They never do.
Even her.
Especially her.
His laugh slices through my thoughts.
Too loud, too close.
And suddenly every sound in the room
is crashing into me at once,
filling my head,
pushing everything else out.
The rope inside me is creaking.
Every word he says is another thread pulling loose.
“So what do you think?” he asks.
When the body forgets how to rest,
the mind forgets how to lie.
“I threw out a bottle of sleeping pills last night
because for a moment, I thought maybe swallowing them all
would finally let me sleep.
But hey,
I can postpone my suicide to next Tuesday.
Your problem is obviously more urgent.”
Silence.
Mouth open.
Then he leaves.
I watch the door for a while.
It doesn’t open again.
The texts come later.
From him. From others.
I was mean.
I’d changed.
A few send numbers for therapists.
Say they’re worried.
That I should talk to someone.
I do feel bad for snapping.
It was uncalled for.
Just because I’m losing my mind
doesn’t mean I get to ruin people’s day.
That’s just inconsiderate.
—
I haven’t spoken to anyone in weeks.
Better to stay silent than let my mouth loose again,
spilling something I can’t take back.
I’m not sure when I last stepped outside.
The apartment smells like stale air and unwashed dishes.
I keep the curtains drawn.
Light feels invasive now.
I’ve been rearranging shelves.
Labeling boxes.
Moving things from one place to another.
A small religion of control in a collapsing church.
I found her shampoo.
Unscrewed the cap. Inhaled.
Put it on the top shelf.
Then the bottom.
Then back to the top.
Like maybe the right arrangement
could undo the fact that she’s gone.
I’ve started reading again.
When you can’t sleep,
books are cheaper than therapy
and less likely to ask how you’re feeling.
I picked up Herzog.
Saul Bellow’s spiral used to sound like madness.
Now it just sounds like a man
who ran out of ways to say help.
I know what that feels like.
I’ve been doing the same thing.
Not letters, like Herzog,
but monologues.
I rehearse them in the dark:
To my ex-employer,
who called it “right-sizing” and “restructuring”
like those weren’t just synonyms for fuck you.
To the ones who said “reach out anytime”
then vanished.
To her,
who walked away and expected me to accept it graciously.
These monologues are cruel.
They cut.
Filled with claw marks and profanities.
Not out of malice,
but because they’re the only honest thing left.
When you haven’t slept in weeks,
there’s no strength left for fairy tales.
No space for pretending.
Only truth,
and the echo it makes in an empty room.
—
One night, after exhausting every imaginary fight,
I went back to Herzog.
And there I found that line.
Not advice.
A verdict.
A sentence from the universe itself:
“Live or die, but don’t poison everything.”
The words didn’t just land,
they detonated.
Suddenly, I saw it all at once:
the sleepless nights weren’t killing me,
they were forging me.
Burning away the lies I’d told myself:
that people are really there for me.
That she loved me.
That I mattered.
And if I stopped hoping,
stopped yearning…
No one can take anything from me.
This is my rebirth.
A new shape I’ve grown into…
leaner, harder,
invincible.
Like a locked door in an empty house.
Insomnia stripped me to the bone.
And bone doesn’t break easy.
So maybe that’s the deal now.
If I’m going to live,
I’ll live like a ghost.
Unseen.
Unfelt.
No ripples. No mess.
Keep the poison inside.
Smile at everyone.
Say I’m doing okay
with just enough light in my eyes to pass inspection.
Because needing?
Wanting?
Hoping?
Those are just ways for people to wreck you,
and I’m done being wrecked.
This isn’t despair.
It’s survival.
It’s evolution.
And God help anyone who tries to drag me back.
—
I’ve been out and about lately.
Reunions. Old friends.
Even drinks with my ex-employer.
Something in me shifted.
Like my soul stopped screaming
because I finally accepted nobody was listening
and nobody really cared.
In that silence,
there was power.
The kind you get when you stop needing to be seen.
The pain is just a memory now.
I know its shape,
but not its bite.
I remember laughing,
I just don’t remember why it felt good.
People didn’t notice.
Or maybe they did,
and were just relieved the program kept running.
I gave them my greatest hits:
“I’m proud of you.”
“You got this.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
They said I seemed more rested.
More grounded.
Like I was back to my “real self.”
Turns out it’s easy to look fine
when you’re hollowed out.
A puppet doesn’t get stage fright.
I still haven’t slept.
Don’t need to.
Sleep is for people carrying weight.
I got nothing left to carry anymore.
I invited her to lunch.
She hugged me like we were old friends.
Said it was good to see me,
that I looked good.
She told me stories.
Laughed the same way she used to.
She didn’t say she was seeing someone.
Didn’t need to.
That careful smile,
the one people give when they hope you won’t ask
because they’re not sure they can lie gently enough.
I knew it would hurt like hell.
But when it came,
it was just… quiet.
Like the pain got lost on the way in
and settled somewhere far away.
Suddenly, I saw her clearly,
no story, no ache.
Just a woman who was already gone
long before she ever left.
Because in this world,
if you stop being useful,
people don’t ask why.
They just replace you.
And that’s fine.
I don’t need to be seen anymore.
There’s freedom in being invisible
while sitting right in front of someone.
No expectations.
No sorrow.
No joy.
Just peace.
Now I see the world for what it is:
a stage, a farce,
a sitcom without a laugh track.
Nothing left to take from me,
because I stopped leaving the door unlocked.
The part of me that cared,
that loved,
that hoped…
Well, he swallowed the sleeping pills a long time ago,
and his body is sprawled out somewhere in the dark.
I’m free from the world,
and from myself.
Lucky bastard.
Featured image adapted from a photo by Giancarlo Revolledo.
See more on Unsplash: @giancarlor_photo
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