This Isn’t Living

I’m tired of feeling paralyzed by the unknown,
like my feet were poured in concrete
the moment I started asking what if.

I’m tired of waiting
for a day I never invited,
but feel breathing down my neck
like it knows my name.

I wake up already bracing
for something I can’t see,
holding my breath
like the air itself might betray me.

Everyone says it’ll come when it comes,
like that’s supposed to comfort me,
like inevitability isn’t just
fear with better branding.

Because I know it’s coming.
I know it in the quiet moments,
in the spaces between distractions,
in the way my chest tightens
for no reason at all.

And I’m so tired
of rehearsing disasters,
of mourning things that haven’t happened yet,
of living half a life
just in case everything falls apart.

I don’t want to keep waiting
for the worst version of the story.

I want to move—
even if I shake,
even if I’m wrong,
even if I don’t survive it
the way I thought I would.

Because this—
this standing still in the shadow of maybe—
feels like disappearing
before anything has even begun.

Stay Weird Love You. Mean It.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash