In young adulthood, it grew bored.
More silent now,
more clever.
It stopped clawing and simply waited—
arms crossed, foot tapping,
as if to say:
“Well? Are you still hoping for someone?”

14

No one is coming to save you.
It used to sound like a curse.
Now,
it sounds a little like
freedom.

14

As a teen, it crushed me.
Depression didn’t whisper then—
it screamed into the vacuum of my ribs,
wrapped around my chest
like a too-tight seatbelt in a car that never crashes
but still leaves bruises.
I learned to hold my breath for entire semesters.

13

So I got up.
Dusted off the years.
Patched the wounds I could reach.
Breathed. Walked.
Not because I was ready—
but because I was alone,
and still here.

13

And always, always beside it,
like a second pulse,
came that phrase:
No one is coming to save you.

12

I heard it once and flinched.
Heard it twice and turned away.
But on the thousand-and-first time,
something shifted.
The words no longer dragged me under—
they stood me up.
They rang like flint on steel.

12

My childhood was painted in shades of grey,
not the soft kind—
but the heavy fog that dulls the sky
and settles in your lungs.
I slept through years I don’t remember.
Even waking was a kind of drowning.

11