Borrowed Light

I still smile when people look my way. People think I'm okay because I've become good at pretending. The truth is, I lost myself somewhere along the way. I push people away before they can leave first and spend my days carrying everyone else's burdens while quietly falling apart beneath my own.

When my mind became too loud to live in, I searched for an escape. I found drugs. Not because I wanted to destroy myself, but because I craved happiness—any kind of happiness, even if it didn't last. For a few hours, the noise stopped. I could laugh without forcing it, breathe without the weight on my chest, and forget how much I hurt. I knew it was temporary—that it would fade by morning, that the silence would creep back in—but when you've been deprived of peace for so long, even borrowed joy feels worth chasing. A few hours of feeling normal felt like more than I'd had in months. I wasn't trying to disappear. I was just trying, for once, to feel like I was still here.

And then there was her. I loved her. Remembered the little things, imagined futures, held onto small moments like they meant something bigger. But somewhere along the way, I realized she wasn't choosing me anymore—not in the ways that mattered, not in the ways I needed her to. Maybe the boy was being delusional, but something told him it was right. The girl was falling out of love too, quietly, the way these things happen, without either of them saying it out loud. You can't love someone into staying. So I've had to let her go—not because it doesn't hurt, but because holding on was breaking me in slow motion.

People say hope is the last thing we lose. I think I lost mine somewhere between sleepless nights, borrowed highs, and loving someone who no longer loved me the same way. I'm tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of carrying everyone. Tired of chasing temporary happiness when permanent happiness feels out of reach. Tired. But I'm still here. Still breathing. Still searching. Still taking each day as it comes. Maybe that's enough for now: To admit that I'm lost. To let her go. And to keep moving forward, chasing whatever fragments of light I can find— even if all I've ever known is how to live on borrowed light.