there is something wrong with me— not in the way people say when they want comfort— in the way rot sets into fruit: quiet, irreversible. there was once a soul here— a child who wanted to be loved, who begged for softness, who screamed without sound. she’s gone. what’s left is hollow, empty, rotten— just wrong. i don’t want to die, not really. i just don’t want to keep living like this. in this body that remembers every bruise, in this mind that reopens every wound— the wounds that never heal, the rot that seeps deep. i float somewhere above myself, watching this hollow vessel move like a puppet on frayed strings. the world grazes my skin, but never breaks through. i speak, but the voice doesn’t sound like mine. i laugh, but i’m not sure who finds it funny. this life keeps moving— a slow drift toward nowhere, and i stand here, lost in the spaces between moments.