Hollow

An Anatomy of Absence

Some people imagine struggle as something visible.

They picture breakdowns, sharp edges, loud admissions. They assume that if something is serious, it will announce itself clearly enough to be named without hesitation.

But some forms of heaviness don’t arrive like that. They don’t rupture the surface. They alter it gradually. They don’t interrupt a life so much as tint it. Adjusting the temperature of experience until everything feels slightly dimmer, slightly farther away, slightly harder to inhabit.

These poems were written while I was trying to understand that quieter kind of weight. Not a single event, not a dramatic collapse, but an accumulation. How exhaustion can exist without obvious cause. How self-doubt can hum beneath competence. How continuing can feel indistinguishable from coping.

What it feels like when the struggle is less about falling apart, and more about holding shape.

(In other words, the main reason I haven’t been posting for a week, has been a lot of deep contemplation with life :D. that and dealing with some issues at school)

Hope its a good read <3

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Where the Light Falls Thin

Morning does not break, it seeps in slow,
a silver spill with nowhere left to go.
It stains the ceiling, pale and slight,
a quiet leak of borrowed light.

The room feels wider than before,
as if the walls have stepped from shore.
As if the distance learned to grow
between the things I used to know.

I lie and measure what it costs
to move a limb, to feel less lost,
to bargain breath against the weight
of standing up to meet the day.

No thunder cracks. No sorrow screams.
No tear-soaked sheets or shattered dreams.
Just careful math beneath the skin,
what strength remains, what’s paper-thin.

The mirror shows a face intact,
aligned in posture, neat in fact.
No visible fracture, split, or seam.
No proof of what the nights have been.

And somehow that feels worse to see,
how whole the surface seems to be.
How nothing outward dares reveal
the quiet drag of what I feel.

Routine replaces faith with form:
the faucet runs, the shower warms.
I dress not loud, nor bold, nor bright,
just neutral shades that pass as light.

Outside, the engines hum their hymn,
the streets stitched tight at every rim.
Laughter rises, easy, clear.
I shape my echo to fit the air.

I move half-beat behind the sound,
like music slightly out of round.
My pulse keeps time in slower strain,
a softer, heavier refrain.

There’s pressure resting in my chest,
not sharp enough to call unrest,
just steady as the ocean floor
where divers lose which way is shore.

Evening dims without a fight,
turns gold to grey, turns grey to night.
Exhaustion blooms without applause,
not from the work, but from the cause.

Sleep hovers close but will not land,
like something slipping from my hand.
Thoughts replay in muted spin,
where night and mind grow thin and thin.

And still the morning finds its mark,
still light returns to press the dark.
It always does. It always will.
A stubborn sun beyond my will.

And I will rise. Not brave, not new,
not healed enough to claim it true,
but bone by bone, and breath by breath,
I choose the floor over the depth.

Not certain light will feel like mine,
not certain I will ever shine.
but thin as it may fall within,
the light leaks through.

And I begin.

When the Noise Sounds Like Me

There’s a frequency beneath my skin,
a signal low that won’t tune in.
Not loud enough to call it wrong,
not clear enough to call it song.

It doesn’t rage. It doesn’t blame.
It whispers doubt without a name.
A soft suggestion, thin and slow,
the kind that only I would know.

At first it asks in careful tone,
if I belong, if I’ve outgrown
the room I stand in, air I take,
each slight delay, each small mistake.

A question here. A pause replayed.
A moment poorly timed or made.
It gathers fragments, keeps them neat,
lays every flaw at memory’s feet.

Repetition turns the key,
what once was doubt grows certainty.
The mind becomes a quiet court
where lesser thoughts are made report.

Exhibit A: the words unsaid.
Exhibit B: the path misread.
Exhibit C: the version me
who should have known more perfectly.

I speak in defense with borrowed light,
recite the lines I’ve learned by rote:
growth takes time, and grace is wide,
mistakes are human, fear will slide.

But underneath, a steady hum
persists when all the phrases run.
Like office lights at closing time,
a sterile, unforgiving shine.

In crowded rooms I split in two,
too visible, yet passing through.
Aware of hands, aware of breath,
as if each movement risks a test.

My voice feels heavier than sound,
like every word must clear the ground.
And silence, though it seems secure,
is just another form unsure.

Joy arrives but lags behind,
a fraction late to reach the mind.
As if the heart received the news
but warmth got lost between the cues.

Comparison becomes routine,
a quiet scale, a silver screen
where others rise in steady gain
while I subtract myself again.

They gather proof of forward pace,
I measure lack in borrowed space.
They build in strides I cannot see,
I audit my insufficiency.

So I grow smaller by design,
step back before I cross the line.
Dim the light before it shows
the tremor only I would know.

If I am less, I risk less too.
If I am faint, I’ll fade from view.
I trade my color, sharp and clear,
for something safer, thin, austere.

And yet, without my strict consent,
a crack appears within the current.
A laugh escapes before I weigh
the risk of letting it stay.

A memory warms without the sting,
a fleeting, uncalculated thing.
A moment lands without review,
untested, sudden, wholly true.

The static doesn’t fully cease.
It doesn’t grant complete release.
But something in its rhythm slips,
a fracture in its tightening grip.

And in that brief, unguarded air,
I catch the proof still humming there,
that somewhere past the noise I’ve known,
a truer frequency has grown.

Not loud. Not constant. Not yet strong.
But present underneath the wrong.

A signal faint, but still sincere,
waiting
for clearer air.

Rooms That Still Remember Warmth

From the street, the house looks whole,
steady frame and settled role.
Windows catch the open sky,
painted doors, shutters dry.
Curtains drawn but light within,
proof of life beneath the skin.

No shattered glass. No sagging beam.
Nothing outward splits the seam.
If judged by distance, neat and sound,
no warning tape, no caution ground.

But step inside, the echo stays,
lingers longer than it should in place.
Rooms repeat what no one said,
soft confessions left unsaid.

Furniture sits a shade off-line,
not collapsed. Just misaligned.
Shifted inches from its mark,
like something moved it in the dark.

The blueprint must have changed midway,
a quiet edit no one named.
Walls were raised on older plans,
rooms half-built by careful hands.

Dishes linger in the sink,
longer than I’d like to think.
Water stains the silver thin,
circling what might have been.

Messages wait, unopened, still,
tiny ghosts of time and will.
Plans once written, firm and fast,
curl like paper from the past.

Nothing shattered. Nothing loud.
No collapse beneath a crowd.
Just layers settling, day by day,
dust that does not drift away.

It gathers in the corners called
Later, Soon, and If I’m Strong.
Settles fine along the base,
a quiet powder guilt has placed.

Not guilt for harm in open view,
not for something cruel or cruelly true,
but for the energy I swore
I’d have enough of, maybe more.

For promises in brighter air,
when strength felt constant, always there.
For versions of myself who planned
with steady heart and open hand.

I walk the halls aware of light,
each flicker small against the night.
Aware that other houses glow
with windows wide and laughter’s flow.

Their warmth spills easy through the frame.
Mine feels careful, trimmed, contained.
And I wonder what unseen line
runs like a fracture under mine.

What fault below the painted floor
makes brightness harder than before.
What subtle shift beneath the ground
keeps tilting balance, inch by pound.

And yet…

even dimmed, the wiring hums.
A current moves though quiet it runs.
Electric veins within the walls
answer still when evening calls.

Water threads through hidden pipes,
steady in its unseen rites.
The beams hold weight. The roof stays true.
The structure stands. It makes it through.

Some nights I sit upon the floor,
back to plaster, unsure what for.
Feel the wall both frail and strong,
like it has held this all along.

I listen to the muted thread
of something small but not yet dead.
A mechanical, persistent tone
that proves the house is still my own.

It isn’t triumph dressed in flame.
It doesn’t cure or stake a claim.
No banners hung. No grand repair.
No sudden flood of brighter air.

It is not victory. Not release.
Not clean, complete, dramatic peace.

It is a structure, worn but tight,
keeping current through the night.

Quiet walls and steady frame.
A house still standing all the same.

Not flawless.
Not restored.

But holding.

Still.

And therefore.
undeniably.
alive.

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Heyyy there <3, If these pieces leave anything behind, I hope it isn’t heaviness for its own sake, but recognition

They aren’t meant to romanticize staying in dark rooms or glorify endurance (There are other poems I’ve written to myself for that purpose :P). They’re an attempt to put language to something that often goes unnamed, the quiet labor of functioning while internally frayed, the invisible negotiation between collapse and continuation.

The people in my life matter deeply to me. The world still matters. That’s part of why this tension exists. An effort to examine what it costs to keep going when going feels muted.

If any of this resonates, the static, the slow mornings, the house that still hums, I’m glad it reached you.

Sometimes the most honest thing we can do is admit that survival isn’t cinematic.

It’s repetitive.
It’s subtle.
And it still counts.

Thank you for reading and supporting me <3 would love to hear your thoughts, maybe even a restack too if you feel like this should be seen by more people!