When the Breaking Doesn’t Stop

I dyed my hair cosmic blue yesterday.
It was supposed to be a symbol.
A line in the sand.
Me choosing myself, finally —
some stupid gesture to say:
“See? I still believe in new beginnings.”
But it looks fucking ridiculous.
Like a desperate scream disguised as dye.
Like someone trying to mask the rot
with something pretty and loud.

I look like a 40-year-old trying to claw youth back
with bleeding hands.
Even though my face still lies and says twenty-five —
my eyes don’t.
My eyes scream war survivor.
And no one ever asks what war.

Every time I think the breaking is over,
life shows me there’s a lower floor I hadn’t noticed.
A deeper silence.
A new kind of nothing.
And today...
Today I hit it.
Again.
And I don’t know how to fucking stand back up.

I wish I hadn’t been born.
Not as metaphor.
Not as poetry.
I mean it.
I don’t want another breath.
Another sunrise.
Another goddamn affirmation shoved down my throat
while the world stays just as cold.

I am tired of trying to make meaning
out of a world that chews through softness
like it was sin.
I’m tired of offering love
and being told it was a manipulation.
That I was the problem
because I felt too much
and didn’t package it with a fucking bow.

You want raw?
Here it is:

I’m a ghost
who never died.
A soul left on read
by every life it ever touched.
Every time I opened my hands,
someone took the offering
and spit in the wound.

They say I loved too hard.
Too fast.
Too deep.
Too honest.

Too fucking honest.

I should’ve learned.
I should’ve shut up.
Should’ve turned stone,
like the rest of them.
But no —
I kept bleeding like it meant something.

And now?
I’m done.

I’ve lost everything
worth clinging to.
Every thread I followed
turned into a noose.
Even the dogs —
God, I look at them
and wonder who the fuck will hold them
when I finally disappear.

Because I can’t do this anymore.
I am not strong.
I am not resilient.
I am not brave.
I am just fucking tired.

I don’t want to hear
that I’m meant for more.
I don’t want to be told
that it gets better.

I want out.
I want stillness.
I want nothingness
that doesn’t whisper back.

You say I matter?
Then where is everyone now?
Where were they when I begged
in silence and in screams
for someone — anyone — to stay?

I am still
that five-year-old
running toward people
with arms wide open,
only to be told I’m too much.

You want truth?

Here’s truth:

I am the aftermath
of a lifetime of gaslighting.
I am the collateral
of a world that says
“you should be grateful you’re still here.”

Well, I’m not.
I wish I wasn’t.

I don’t see myself surviving this night.
I don’t see any god in this storm.
And if there is one —
he turned his face a long time ago.

I give up.
Let that be my holy act.

— A.