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I wake up like something
that shouldn’t have come back.

No relief.
No reset.
Just consciousness snapping on
like a punishment I forgot I was serving.

The room is the same.
The air is the same.
I am the same—
which is the problem.

There’s a second—one second—
before memory loads,
where nothing exists.

That’s the closest thing to peace I get.

Then it all floods in:
name, body, weight, obligation,
the dull, grinding fact of again.

Again.
Again.
Again.

Every morning is a quiet repetition
of something I never agreed to.

My thoughts don’t scream—
they press.
Slow. Constant.
Like something heavy
lowering itself onto my chest
and deciding to stay.

Breathing feels optional
but required.

Moving feels pointless
but mandatory.

Existing feels like a task
no one will admit is a task.

People call it life
like that settles it.

Like naming the cage
makes it open.

I move through the day
like a bad copy of a person—
responses delayed,
expressions rehearsed,
voice slightly off,
as if I’m hearing it
from somewhere behind my own skull.

There’s no sharp pain to point at.

Just this low, continuous wrongness
that never quite peaks
and never quite leaves.

I don’t want to die—
that’s too clear, too final.

I want the off switch
they forgot to install.

I want the gap
before the system boots.

I want the nothing
that doesn’t ask anything of me.

Instead—
I get morning.

Relentless.
Indifferent.
On time.

Dragging me back into a body
that fits like a sentence

I haven’t finished serving.

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