Member-only story
I Disappear to Keep Existing
When the world is too much for your nervous system
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There comes a moment when the world begins folding in on itself.
It doesn’t make a sound. No one sees it happen.
No one notices that the version of me standing before them has gone hollow — a shell, a shape, a still life.
I lie.
I say “migraine,” or “just tired,” or some other rehearsed phrase that quietly locks the door on further questions.
Because if I told the truth — if I said,
“I need to be completely alone or I will shatter into pieces too small to gather,” they wouldn’t understand.
They’d make it about themselves.
They’d hear insult where there is only fragility.
And I can’t carry their feelings while drowning in mine.
So I smile.
I nod.
I say, “I’m fine.”
But the truth is — there was pain in my chest that never left.
A deep, physical ache, as if something inside me had cracked open and kept bleeding, silently.
