Zephyr

I wake up already exhausted from being myself.

Or maybe not even myself,

just the outline of a person

going through motions so rehearsed

they no longer require thought.

I brush my teeth.

Answer messages.

Laugh in the right places.

Pretend the hours mean something

because everyone else seems convinced they do.

But most of my life feels like standing in a train station

after the last departure,

watching empty tracks hum with the memory of movement.

And then there is you.

You arrive so naturally

you don’t even notice what happens to me.

How the static in my head quiets.

How suddenly I start speaking with certainty,

as if your presence pulls language out of places

I cannot reach alone.

The world sharpens around the edges when you’re near.

Food tastes fuller.

Music stops sounding distant.

Even the sky looks intentional.

I become someone I recognize.

Not happier, exactly.

Just real.

Like all my scattered pieces

briefly remember they belong to the same person.

And I hate that.

I hate how easily my soul bends toward you

like starving things do toward light.

How my entire existence seems to hinge

on whether or not you are looking my way.

Because when you leave,

even for ordinary reasons,

even for moments that should not hurt,

everything collapses inward again.

The silence returns first.

Then the numbness.

Then that unbearable feeling

that I have fallen out of my own body

and become a ghost haunting my routine.

I move through days half-awake,

touching objects that do not feel connected to me.

I sit in rooms and wonder

if everyone secretly feels this hollow

or if they were all handed something at birth

that taught them how to exist without borrowing meaning

from another heartbeat.

People say things like

“find yourself,”

as if the self is a misplaced object,

as if mine isn’t buried beneath years of surviving,

people-pleasing,

longing,

and trying to become whatever would make someone stay.

So I search.

I really try,

In music.

In late-night walks.

In old versions of myself.

In hobbies abandoned before they had the chance to matter.

In mirrors.

In memories.

In the spaces between conversations.

But every path seems to lead back

to the same aching truth:

I do not know who I am

when I am not loved loudly.

And maybe that is the deepest loneliness of all

not being alone,

but being unable to feel your own shape

without someone else tracing it for you first.

Sometimes I wonder

if I was born with some emotional emptiness inside me,

a room with no furniture,

no windows,

just echoes.

And every person I love

becomes temporary decoration

inside a place that never truly feels inhabited.

You make that room feel alive.

That is what terrifies me.

Not losing you, necessarily,

but losing the version of me

that only seems to exist in your presence.

Because when you hold me,

the world stops feeling accidental.

My thoughts soften.

My chest unclenches.

For a few beautiful moments,

I am not searching for purpose

I am simply inside it.

And when you are gone,

I return to myself

like returning to an abandoned house:

quiet, dusty, unfamiliar.

Still standing.

Still breathing.

I promise you, it's not that easy

Honey, you only belong to me

I promise you, you'll never ever be able to leave

I'll suck the life out of you like a leech

Yeah, I'll suffocate

I'll make it impossible to breathe

It does not mean that they actually care

Just because a loved one will stand in your way

It doesn't mean they're emotionally aware

It's easy to hide behind being overwhelmed when you feel like you're constantly a burden

But you don't just want to be a persona, you also need to be a person

And now you're realizing that your serotonin is completely depleted

A coward is shivering inside

Today, I'll, I'll be a friend of mine

It’s not dramatic.

It’s subtle, like a radio slightly changing frequency

every time the room shifts.

Some days I am certain.

Some days I am barely there at all.

I look for myself in patterns:

how I talk, how I react, what I want, what I swear I don’t want anymore.

But even those don’t hold still.

Even those rewrite themselves without asking.

It feels like identity isn’t missing,

just unstable.

Like it exists, but can’t decide its shape.

And then there is my favourite person.

Not a choice that feels like a choice.

More like gravity noticing me.

When they are close, I feel assembled.

Like the scattered pieces line up for a while

and I can pretend I know who I am.

I speak differently.

Think more clearly.

Feel less like smoke.

But it isn’t steady, it’s conditional.

A message can shift the air.

A delay can change the shape of my thoughts.

Silence can turn everything inward again,

and I start trying to become someone

who won’t be left.

I don’t always notice I’m changing.

I just notice I’m not me anymore

and I don’t know when I stopped being them.

So I rebuild.

Over and over.

From reactions, reflections, fragments of what worked last time.

And I keep wondering

if there is a “me” underneath all of it

or if I am just the space between attachments,