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They keep saying I changed, but just outgrew the version of me they were comfortable with. It’s what happens when you don’t check in because you assume I didn’t need it. And people think it’s easy to be quiet, to do it on your own. This goddam Silence cost me more than I ever expected. I was jumped and my own friends planned the attack. I been used for my money, I been tried and replaced. I been booed off the world stage, been described a disgrace. At night I still toss and turn, thinkin’ about all the lessons I learned, all the people whose mental health is worse. So much anxiety inside me, can’t calm my nerves. I’d rather disappear from society because since my birth I felt cursed. So I sit in the dark quietly and write these words. I’m not lost, I’m just tired, I’m not cold, I’m just wired. Tryna see straight through a fractured eye, carryin’ weight I never asked for in life. Mother… if you listen, please don’t be mad. I know what I’m doing isn’t right. Life isn’t som’ simple joke I look at that has no weight on my mind. I want you to know I love you, but lately I don’t feel like me. It was nothing you did, you did what you could. There’s just something wrong with me. And the truth is, since I was young I’ve felt this, I never felt like I belonged. And this ain’t cause I’m depressed, this is me speaking as someone who felt alone. I feel like my face isn’t worth showing anymore, like I’m just a ghost. A faceless figure. A body. A corpse. Every day I lose my voice and struggle just to speak, a pain I bare from burdens and scars that are impossible to see. I’m not lost, I’m just tired, I’m not weak, I’m rewired. Tryna make sense through a fractured eye, still standin’ even when I’m barely alive. Growth looks violent from the outside. Silence sounds rude when it’s survival. I didn’t disappear, I just stopped explainin’. I didn’t change to hurt anybody, I changed ‘cause stayin’ the same was killin’ me slowly. If you miss the boy I used to be, understand — he didn’t survive what I did. I’m not lost, I’m just tired, still here, just more guarded. Tryna live life through a fractured eye, but I’m still writin’, so I’m still alive. I don’t write for attention. I write so I don’t disappear.