Forgotten.

The tubes that wrapped around my neck when I emerged from the womb didn’t take me. The pills I swallowed in neat rows of white and blue to end my life didn’t work. The knife that sliced my wrists never cut deep enough. There’s a strange comfort in thinking about it now—the closeness to death that’s brushed my life, yet I remain. I’m still here, but it feels as though I exist only to be forgotten. Banishing self-doubt hasn’t freed me; it’s left cracks in my skin, deep and jagged, exposing the rawness underneath.

Today is my birthday, and I feel more alone than ever. It’s as if the weight of the day has conspired against me, forcing its presence into my awareness in a way that’s impossible to ignore. Each year I feel less penetrable, more detached from the world I’m moving through. I survived the dull haze of childhood, thick with memories I can barely recall. I thought I wanted peace like this—an isolation where nothing could touch me—but that’s the problem with wanting. Even when you get everything you asked for, it arrives tainted, stained by the endless “what could have been.”

I know it’s paradoxical, but I’ve built myself brick by brick from this chaos. The old me has been overshadowed by a new identity, one that feels powerful at times, but betrays me just as often. She haunts me. The medication should be working by now, but all I’m left with is an emptiness that clings like a ghost refusing to leave. Time heals all wounds, they say, but I’ve come to realize that’s a lie. Some wounds never heal; they remain open, festering in solitude—sometimes closing, only to rip apart again. Always there, dulling but never gone.

I drop my phone after another round of doom-scrolling, letting it slip through my fingers like dead weight. Staring at the ceiling, I trace the familiar patterns in the plaster, the uneven curves and bumps I’ve memorized. The ceiling mirrors my life—flat, predictable—but its imperfections seem to hide secrets, as if they’re trying to tell me something I’ve overlooked. The hollowness settles deep into my bones as I lie there, paralyzed by despair, waiting for a revelation that never comes.

I close my eyes, hoping for one last glimpse of you before I push your memory away, hoping to forget you forever. But you linger, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts, even now, on this meaningless birthday.

I woke the next day, not with excitement, but with the bleak realization that I’m now 24. The significance of it has slipped away, reclaimed by the dull monotony of growing older—alone. This is what I prayed for, wasn’t it? To be alone, to have peace after what happened last year. So why am I not happy? Maybe being alone is part of finding myself, or maybe it’s just a path to realizing I’ll never be found.

I get out of bed, still feeling the fog from last night’s celebration clinging to me. I stumble to the bathroom, where I engage in a silent, internal monologue, trying to convince myself that I’m worth more than this feeling. Then—fuck. No toilet paper. So much for self-worth. I sit there, swallowed up by the absurdity of it all, reaching for a rag on the counter, trying to clean up one mess while knowing my life feels like a far bigger one. I finish and toss the rag into the laundry, shrugging at my reflection as if it has the answers I don’t.

The room is still softly lit from the rising sun, a muted glow sneaking through the curtains. I should clean up. The floor is littered with trinkets, cluttering my space the same way my thoughts clutter my mind. My bed calls to me, whispering promises of escape, but I resist, determined to clear something, anything. The sky outside is heavy with clouds, a mirror to my mood—aching for release. I glance out the window, searching for a sign, some hint that today will be different, but the sky remains as silent and distant as ever.

After tidying my space, I head downstairs for my first cigarette of the day. I light it and look up at the sky, daydreaming about nothing in particular. The mind is such a strange place to get lost in. The sky, once a soft violet, now fades to a deep navy, like the fading of hope itself. I put my headphones on, trying to silence the familiar thoughts, hoping new ones will come.

The cigarette burns down to its final embers, the ash teetering on the edge. As it nears its end, I think of you. There’s something about watching it burn that reminds me of us—how we were once something bright, now reduced to fleeting moments, fragile and fading, a clue. I begged you to stay, but your texts were clear: concise, final. And yet, I can’t shake the question that haunts me—how does it feel to be you? To have such a hold over a stranger?

I promised myself this wouldn’t happen again, yet here I am, caught in the remnants of a connection that was never really there.

Just like the cigarette, we are vanishing—reduced to embers of an addiction that once burned so brightly.  No text. No call. Nothing. The silence between us stretches like a canyon, with me on one side, watching you fade away on the other leaving us to be strangers. What did I do wrong? Where did it all go? The hugs, the kisses, the laughter—the “I miss you’s” that felt like promises. Now they’re lost, evaporating into a past I can never reclaim.

You left, without a word or explanation, leaving only the hollow echo of your absence. And here I am, left to accept this life of loneliness once more. It greets me like an old friend—familiar, cold, but comforting in its own twisted way. I’m free from the weight of love, yet shackled by the emptiness of its loss.

But even in this so-called freedom, there’s no solace. Only the same aching question that lingers: Why?