I laugh like nothing’s wrong, like my chest isn’t a storm wrapped in skin and silence. I walk through days as if I’m whole, but every step feels borrowed, every breath feels thin. There’s a kind of pain that doesn’t scream, it just settles, soft and heavy, like dust on a forgotten shelf. People ask, “Are you okay?” and I nod, because truth is too sharp to hand out casually. Inside, I’m a house with the lights on and no one home. I’m tired of being strong in places no one sees, tired of holding myself together with invisible thread. I’m not breaking loudly, I’m fading quietly, a slow collapse behind a practiced smile. And the hardest part is no one notices when you’re dying on the inside… because you still look alive.