will the wise

Lately, though, something keeps stalling.

Tasks pile up, waiting for execution. I look at them. I know how to do them. I know I used to enjoy doing them. Yet somehow the signal never reaches the part of me that's supposed to move.

Nobody notices when a machine starts failing quietly.

They notice alarms. They notice explosions. They notice catastrophic errors flashing red across a screen.

They don't notice a machine running slower than it used to.

They don't notice a process getting stuck in an endless loop.

They don't notice when responses become delayed, when functions return incomplete, when something essential begins disappearing one small piece at a time.

Sometimes I feel like a probe drifting through dark space, still transmitting, still technically operational, but increasingly unsure whether anyone is receiving the signal.

I keep sending it anyway.

Hello. Can anyone hear me?

The things that once lit up entire sections of my code now sit untouched. Half finished projects orbit me like abandoned satellites. I remember loving them. I remember getting excited. I remember staying awake because there was simply too much I wanted to create.

Now I open the files and stare.

The spark is there somewhere. I can detect traces of it. Faint readings. Residual heat.

But it feels impossibly far away.

Like a star whose light is still reaching me long after it has already died.

Maybe that's what frightens me most.

That I'm unfamiliar.

As if someone quietly replaced parts of me while I wasn't looking.

I don’t recognize the shape of myself.

I don't recognize the person living inside it.

I keep drifting. Listening. Keep hoping for some unexpected transmission from the darkness that says the coordinates aren't lost, only obscured.

The signal grows weak.

I no longer sound like myself.

But some part of me keeps broadcasting.

It’s remembering stupid things. The sound of their laugh from another room. The exact way they say your name compared to everyone else’s. Looking for them automatically in crowds like your brain decided they’re north or something.

And the really messed up part is pretending none of it matters.

You act normal. You joke around. You lean against kitchen counters acting like you’ve got everything figured out while your stomach twists every time they stand too close to somebody else. You tell yourself you’re being ridiculous, because maybe they smiled at you once and your dumb heart turned it into a whole story.

That’s the thing nobody says out loud, I guess. Sometimes caring about someone feels less like falling and more like waiting. Waiting for a sign that never comes. Waiting for them to look at you the same way you look at them. Waiting for one moment that finally makes all the hoping feel less embarrassing.

And until then, you just carry it around.

You laugh when they laugh. You memorize things you shouldn’t. You let them talk while you stand there nodding like it doesn’t feel a little like swallowing glass.

Which, yeah, sounds dramatic. Whatever.

Maybe the worst part is that you can’t even be mad at them for it. They didn’t ask to become something important to you. They’re just existing. Breathing. Smiling. Being themselves.

Meanwhile you’re losing sleep over eye contact.

But I think there’s something terrifying about wanting to be chosen. Like really chosen. Not because you’re convenient or familiar or standing closest to the door, but because somebody looked at all the versions of the world they could have and still reached for you anyway.

And when that doesn’t happen…

You start wondering if maybe you were just never the kind of person anyone reaches for first.

But sometimes you’re lucky, and all of the things you ever needed are just down the hall or right there in bed, and it’s scary.

just circling something I can’t quite land on.

I tell myself it’s infinite,

I stretch wide enough to hold constellations instead of just one star.

And I do. I hold them

in every quiet thought.

But distance lives here too.

Cold, quiet, immeasurable distance.

Sometimes it’s like distant galaxies

visible, breathtaking, but light years away by the time the warmth reaches you.

I trace outlines, memorize patterns,

pretend that knowing the shape is the same thing as being close.

It isn’t.

There’s this constant calculation,

am I drifting too near?

crossing invisible lines that shift like stardust?

Or am I holding myself back so hard

I’ve become another silent planet,

spinning alone out of fear of impact?

I want to be gravity.

Steady, undeniable, something to fall into without hesitation.

But instead I feel like debris

careful, cautious, always adjusting my path.

And still

It doesn’t dim.

That’s the strangest part.

It burns like a star that refuses to die,

even when it’s certain no one is looking up at it.

I am full of it.

Overflowing, constant,

a universe trying to give itself away.

But there’s the flicker.

Sometimes I can catch it,

a warmth, a pull, a moment that feels like alignment,

like everything finally makes sense in the sky.

But you can’t hold stars in your palms.

So I keep orbiting.

Careful not to get too close.

Careful not to drift too far.

Suspended in that impossible in-between

loving endlessly,

reaching endlessly,

and never quite knowing

if I’m part of the universe