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Sometimes, I feel my breath tighten. I wonder if I have ever truly surrendered myself to anyone. I’ve always thought I was too intelligent to fall in love. Was I too rational to trust someone unconditionally? I think about the times I took the initiative to trust people—maybe I was letting myself be used, or playing the fool, but in return, I got the chance to understand the other person better. I always learn too late that I shouldn’t ask too many questions; the more I ask, the more my sorrow or excitement fades. The deeper I dig, the more my once-pure thoughts darken.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it really means to love. Is it a feeling of pity, acceptance, admiration? Maybe it’s just a simple admiration, but does everyone admire the person they think they love? Maybe admiration is necessary to overlook the parts that don’t align. I keep noticing similarities between people, as if the common traits of those around me are hidden within what I find attractive about them. For some reason, I don’t like people who are too pure, nor those trapped within their own rigid rules. I always love those who seek to discover themselves more, who dare to go deeper. And perhaps that’s why I constantly find myself feeling insecure.

I feel completely detached from society. Maybe I’ve even lost my self-respect. I wonder if all of this stems from not being enough for others. Do you have to constantly strive and improve to be enough for someone, or do you let yourself go once you realize you’re enough for them? I have no idea. I believe I compensate for my social incompetence with my ability to observe. At times, I also get angry at myself for failing to stay silent, and that frustration always leads to deep regret.

I keep asking myself the same question over and over again—why don’t I love perfection? Why do I crave flaws? Why does something flawless seem the most flawed to me? Why, when I have the chance to live a smooth life, do I always choose the most imperfect one? Why do I sometimes enjoy the suffocating contradiction of hurting myself just to be able to choose an easier path? The success that comes after the pain we grow up with seems like it will haunt me forever. I will always feel like I need to endure great pain to experience a sense of accomplishment. Maybe I’m even in love with the painful process of earning my reward.

I’ve started to think that bodies hold no allure for me. I am an admirer of marginal thoughts within the mind. Whether it’s a forgotten body or one remembered by all, the richness within the mind has always been overlooked. I wish I didn’t have to work so hard to discover them, or that I didn’t feel the need to enrich my own thoughts every night by weaving them into different scenarios. I eagerly await the moment when I will finally regain confidence in myself. As I pass by people without looking into their eyes, I wonder what thoughts I stir within their minds. Maybe I’m wasting my one-shot life by simply wondering…

Sometimes, I just want to be erased. The words I’ve spoken, the warmth I’ve left on my chair, the fingerprints on my coffee cup. I want to disappear like a speck of dust in some forgotten corner and become the joy of the gleaming surface left behind. What wouldn’t I give for a world where my erasure is seen not as sorrow, but as relief? Living is hard. And I think I am someone too powerless to endure this arduous journey. In a mind built upon failures, I can’t even reach the crumbs of happiness. I watch, envious, as the people who care for me envision my imagined rise. I just want to vanish—in an instant, in a fleeting second, in a breath.

In my dreams, I am met with cries of people calling out to me. I run from them, trying to hide in a corner, but my hopeful waiting is always shattered when they find me in my solitude. I kneel before them, begging for them to let me go. Even before the day begins, I see my own helplessness within the dreams that drain my hope. Tears stream from my eyes as I mourn a life I have failed to live. I grieve the emptiness at the center of the applause meant for me. I grieve the nothingness left of my lost youth. I grieve the disappointment etched on the faces of those I had only just begun to feel close to.

They ask me why I feel the need to disappear, yet they never look into my eyes. They do not see the void where I once existed. They do not know the pain of being unheard. They do not hear the echo of my footsteps filling my room. They do not know that in my mind, I am running, screaming, tearing through thoughts in desperate chaos. They do not know that no matter how hard I try, I cannot become just anyone. They do not know that I would give everything to simply be one of them. They only call out, they only cheer, they only elevate me—yet they do not know that I am still just me…

Everywhere I turn, I see you. Though I can never find you out there, I take refuge in the you that lives within me. I worship you, tempting you to think that I choose you above all others. In every moment of my life, I carry you in the landscape of my mind. I dream of banishing you from my heart, yet every path those dreams trace leads me straight back to you. I read and discover your footprints… I look outside and behold a world made of you… I run away, but I cannot imagine escaping you…

Why do I still love you, oh God? Why, even after betraying you, do I refuse to let you go? Why do I keep recreating you in every alternate universe? Why, having rejected you so many times, do I feel myself falling in love with you all over again? Why do I still drown in your sacred pages? Why do I not strive to be as humble as you? Why, when there is another way to live, do I choose to live inside you? Oh God, tell me: why, because of my choices, do you make me suffer in your hell? Oh God, tell me: why do you make me feel so intensely?