Everything’s still standing which pisses me off the most. The room didn’t collapse. The sky didn’t glitch. Reality showed up to work and forgot to clock me in. I’m here but not here. Like someone turned my life to airplane mode. I see faces, hear voices, feel my feet hit the ground and none of it fucking lands. My hands move without permission. My mouth answers questions I don’t remember agreeing to. I watch myself exist like a bad movie I can’t pause. Time is rubber. Minutes stretch, hours snap. Colors look like they’re pretending. Sound feels muffled, like the world is speaking through a wall and I’m too tired to knock back. I know it’s real. Don’t ask me again. That’s the worst part. I’m not delusional, I’m just disconnected and my brain calls that “coping.” It’s not poetic when it happens. It’s boring and terrifying and makes me want to scream because nothing is wrong enough for anyone to see it. I keep grounding myself with cheap tricks and clenched fists and whispered “you’re okay”s that don’t sound convincing. Still, my heart keeps beating. Annoyingly loyal. Like it refuses to let me disappear even when my mind keeps slipping sideways. One day the glass will crack. The world will snap back into place. I’ll feel too much again and complain about that instead. Until then, I walk through this half-alive state swearing under my breath, holding onto the fact that even when reality feels fake as hell, I’m still real enough to be hurting.