Half-Seen

Depression sucks

I’m tired in a way sleep can’t touch,
a bone‑deep unraveling
I keep hidden behind steady breaths
and a face that remembers how to smile.

I want to live again,
to feel something warm move through me,
to love without flinching—
but the hollow inside me echoes
every time I try.

I’m afraid of how empty I’ve become,
afraid someone might notice,
afraid someone might not.
I’m great at faking it—
the practiced calm,
the almost‑believable glow.

I want to be seen,
but not seen too closely.
I want someone to understand,
but not enough to touch the ache.
I want to be held,
but I don’t know where to put my broken edges.

So I move through the world
half‑present, half‑ghost,
hoping someone might catch the flicker
without asking me to explain it.

And maybe that’s all I can offer right now—
a quiet truth beneath the mask,
a trembling shape in the dark,
wanting to be found
but not ready to step into the light.

I move through the hours
like someone wading through smoke,
each breath a small negotiation
between staying and disappearing.

Nothing blooms here,
but nothing shatters either—
it’s a narrow kind of living,
a quiet survival
that asks nothing of me
except to keep breathing
even when the air feels thin.

I sink into the quiet
where even my thoughts feel distant,
like voices calling through water
I’m too tired to swim toward.

There’s a weight in my chest
that doesn’t crush,
just lingers—
a dull, familiar pressure
I’ve learned to carry
without letting it show.

Nothing reaches me here,
not memory, not meaning—
just the slow, steady ache
of existing because I don’t know
what else to do.