I wake up already tired. Not the normal kind. This is the kind that feels stitched into my bones, like someone replaced my blood with wet sand while I slept.
My eyes open to the same ceiling I've stared at for years, but today it looks different. There's a faint stain in the corner I swear wasn't there before, spreading out like a bruise on the plaster. I watch it until my vision blurs, and even then I keep staring. Moving feels like a corpse I don't have the strength for.
The bedsheet clings to my legs. It's warm from my body but somehow still cold, like the fabric learned how to hold two temperatures at once just to mess with me. I try to pull it off and my hand barely twitches. So I stop. Let the sheet win.
I listen to my breathing. Slow at first, then uneven. Every inhale feels like dragging air through a narrow, broken pipe. Every exhale feels like something inside me is collapsing.
My heart beats louder when I notice it.Thump.Thump.Thump.It echoes through the mattress springs, up the pillow, and into the back of my skull. I wonder if other people can hear their heartbeat this clearly. Probably not. That's the kind of thing you only notice when your mind won't shut up.
My phone vibrates somewhere under the blanket. Messages, reminders of somethings i probably dont want to see. I don't reach for it. Looking at it would only remind me of everything I'm supposed to do today, and everything I know I won't.
The room feels too still. Too quiet. Like the air froze while I slept and never loosened
I think about getting up, taking a showering, brushing my teeth, pretending I'm a functioning human being but the thought alone drains whatever small spark I woke up with.
My jaw tenses up for no reason.My chest tightens.My hands go numb.
It's as if my whole body is refusing to start the day before I even argue back.
I turn my head to the side. The window curtain is half-open. A thin line of morning light cuts across the floor like a blade, sharp and cold. The dust in the air moves slowly through it, floating like a ghosts. Everything looks normal but feels wrong, like I'm watching someone else's life from a distance.
The worst part is that nothing actually happened.No event.No tragedy.No dramatic twist.
I just woke up, and waking up was enough to crush me.
My parents think I'm lazy when I lie here too long. They think I'm avoiding life on purpose. I hear their voices even now, echoing at the edges of my memory—sharp phrases, the kind you can't forget even if you want to.
"Why are you still in bed?""You're wasting your youth.""No one will help you if you don't help yourself."
They don't see mornings like this. They don't know how heavy a blanket can feel. They think tired means sleepy, and stress means dramatic. They think lying here is a choice.
I lift my hand again. It trembles halfway up, then falls back onto my chest.That's fine.I wasn't going anywhere anyway.
I close my eyes and feel my heartbeat again—fast, too fast, like it's trying to run without me. I wonder if it knows something I don't. I wonder if it's trying to warn me of something that hasn't happened yet, or something I've been ignoring for years.
The bed creaks when I shift, a soft groan that feels almost alive. I breathe in. Hold it. Let it out slow.
For a moment, the whole world shrinks down to this mattress, this room, this heavy silence.
And lying here, staring at the ceiling bruise that wasn't here yesterday, I can't tell if I'm waking up or falling deeper into something I'll never climb out of.