Walls

He wakes up tired
before the day has even started.

Not the kind of tired
that sleep can fix,
but the kind that has lived inside him
for years.

He has become good at hiding it.

Good at getting out of bed.
Good at answering questions.
Good at smiling when someone looks at him.

Nobody knows how long
he has been pretending.

His room is quiet.

At least, it is supposed to be.

There are voices again.

Some sound like memories.
Some sound like fears.
Some don't sound like anything he recognizes.

They have been there for so long
that he cannot remember
what his own thoughts sounded like before them.

He keeps them to himself.

Just like everything else.

At school, he watches people
move effortlessly through the world.

They laugh at the right moments.
They know what to say.
They know where they belong.

He watches from a distance,
wondering what it must feel like
to exist without constantly questioning yourself.

He has spent years
learning how to look normal.

Nobody notices
how much effort it takes.

Sometimes he looks in the mirror
and feels like he is looking at someone
he was assigned to be
rather than someone he understands.

He has questions
he has never said aloud.

What am I supposed to call myself?

Who am I supposed to become?

Why does being a boy
sometimes feel completely right
and sometimes feel like a word
that was placed on him
before he ever had a choice?

Some days, he wishes
he could wake up as someone else.

Other days,
he wishes he could simply wake up
and know who he is.

Then there are days
when he doesn't want a label at all.

He wonders if something is wrong with him.

He wonders if everyone else
received instructions
that somehow never reached him.

He has spent years changing little things
and changing them back.

His clothes.
His hair.
His voice.
His entire self.

Every version of himself
feels almost right.

Almost.

And almost is exhausting.

Somewhere along the way,
his feelings began disappearing.

At first, he thought it was temporary.

Then days became months.

Months became years.

Now he can remember
what happiness used to feel like,
but remembering isn't the same
as feeling it.

He knows when he should be sad.

He knows when he should be angry.

He knows when something should hurt.

But sometimes there is only emptiness.

A blank room
where everything he used to feel
has gone quiet.

People ask him what is wrong.

He says,

“I'm fine.”

The words come easily now.

He has said them so many times
they barely feel like words anymore.

He sits with people at lunch
and listens to them talk.

He wants to join in.

He thinks of things to say,
then watches the moment pass.

He laughs when everyone else laughs,
even when he doesn't understand the joke.

He nods along
because he doesn't know what else to do.

He is surrounded by people
and still feels like he is standing outside
looking in through glass.

He has spent so long feeling separate
that loneliness has started to feel familiar.

Not comforting.

Just familiar.

He wants someone to understand him,

but he doesn't know how to explain
something he has spent years hiding.

How do you tell someone
that you don't recognize yourself?

How do you explain
that your own mind never seems quiet?

How do you describe feeling everything
and nothing
at the same time?

So he says nothing.

He keeps the questions buried.

He keeps the confusion buried.

He keeps the loneliness buried.

He keeps the voices buried.

He keeps the sadness buried.

And every year,
the pile becomes a little deeper.

People see a teenager
walking through the hallway.

They see someone quiet.

Someone ordinary.

Someone who looks like he is getting through the day.

They don't see the years
he has spent carrying things
he was never meant to carry alone.

They don't hear the noise
behind his silence.

They don't see how tired he is
of pretending that he isn't tired.

And perhaps the saddest part
is that he has become so used to hiding everything
that he no longer knows
how to let anyone see him.

Then he met a girl.

Not someone who promised
to fix everything.

Not someone who suddenly made
the noise disappear.

Just someone who listened.

She noticed the things
he tried so hard to hide.

She didn't demand explanations
when he couldn't find the words.

She simply stayed.

For the first time in years,
he found himself wanting to speak.

He wanted to tell her everything.

About the voices.

About the emptiness.

About the questions in the mirror.

About how lonely he felt
even when surrounded by people.

He wanted to trust her.

That frightened him.

Trust was something
he had forgotten how to do.

He had spent so many years
keeping every door locked
that he no longer remembered
where he had left the key.

Sometimes he almost tells her everything.

Then fear takes over.

What if she sees him differently?

What if she leaves?

What if she learns who he really is
and decides she doesn't want to know him anymore?

So he takes small steps.

A sentence here.

A thought there.

A little more of himself
each time.

And somehow,
she keeps listening.

He cares about her
more deeply than he knows how to explain.

Not because he needs her to save him.

Not because he wants her to belong to him.

It is something quieter than that.

Something warmer.

A kind of love,
perhaps,
but not the kind people write about.

The kind that exists between two people
who simply matter to each other.

He doesn't know what to call it.

Maybe he doesn't need to.

For once,
he can care about someone
without needing to turn the feeling
into a label.

And maybe, slowly,
he is learning that trust
doesn't have to arrive all at once.

Maybe it can be built
one honest sentence at a time.

One conversation.

One moment of being heard.

One person staying
when he expected them to leave.

The voices are still there.

The emptiness still visits.

The questions still wait for him
in the mirror.

But now there is someone
who knows a little more
about what lives behind his silence.

And for the first time in years,
he doesn't feel quite as invisible.

But now there is something else
he carries with him.

Fear.

Not only for himself anymore.

He worries about her.

He worries about the people she calls friends.

Every time she walks away from him,
part of him wonders
if she will be safe when he isn't there.

He knows he cannot control the world.

He knows terrible things can happen
without warning.

And that knowledge
makes his mind louder.

He wants to protect her.

He wants to protect her friends.

He wants to be the person
who can stand between them
and everything that might hurt them.

But wanting to protect someone
doesn't give him the ability to do it.

He doesn't have answers.

He doesn't have power.

He doesn't have the resources
to make every danger disappear.

Sometimes all he can do
is worry.

Sometimes all he can offer
is a reminder that someone cares.

And that frustrates him more
than he knows how to say.

Because he has spent so long
feeling powerless in his own life,

and now there are people
he would do anything to keep safe,

yet he still cannot promise them
that nothing bad will ever happen.

So he carries that fear quietly too.

He watches her laugh
and hopes she never loses that part of herself.

He listens when she talks
and memorizes the little things
that make her happy.

He stays close when he can.

He worries when he can't.

And sometimes he wishes
caring about someone
didn't also mean discovering
how little control you have
over the world around them.

Still,

he refuses to let fear
turn his care into a cage.

She is her own person.

Her friends are their own people.

He cannot protect them
from every shadow.

He can only be there.

He can listen.

He can remind them
that they don't have to face everything alone.

And maybe that is what he is slowly learning:

Protection isn't always
standing between someone
and the entire world.

Sometimes it is simply
standing beside them
when the world feels too heavy.

For someone who spent years
believing he had nothing to offer,

being there
might be more than he ever realized.

Then, through a friend,
he met someone online.

At first,
there was nothing remarkable about it.

Just a conversation.

A few messages.

A joke that made him smile
before he realized he was smiling.

They talked without asking
for anything from each other.

There was no pressure
to explain every silence.

No expectation
that he had to pretend to be someone else.

So he kept talking.

Day by day,
conversation by conversation.

And something strange began happening.

He started feeling again.

Not all at once.

Not enough to make everything disappear.

Just little things.

A laugh that actually felt like laughter.

Anticipation when he saw a message.

Comfort in knowing
someone was there.

A warmth he had almost forgotten
was possible.

He noticed himself looking forward
to tomorrow.

That frightened him.

He had spent so long
expecting nothing from the future
that wanting another day
felt unfamiliar.

The feelings grew quietly.

They weren't forced.

They weren't planned.

They simply kept appearing
until he could no longer pretend
they weren't there.

He began caring about this person
in a way that felt different.

Deeper.

More personal.

More difficult to explain.

It wasn't just happiness
when they talked.

It was concern when they were hurting.

Relief when they were okay.

Missing them when they weren't around.

Wanting to know
how their day had gone.

Wanting to be someone
they could trust too.

And somewhere between
all those conversations,

something changed.

The feelings stopped being
just feelings.

They became attachment.

They became trust.

They became a quiet kind of love
that he was almost afraid to name.

Not because it was painful,

but because it mattered.

And anything that matters
can be lost.

That thought still scares him.

But for once,
he doesn't immediately bury the feeling.

He lets himself acknowledge it.

He lets himself care.

After years of feeling nothing,
after years of hiding everything,

he discovers something
he never thought he would find again:

A reason to feel something
and not be ashamed of it.

Then there are his parents.

He knows they love him.

That is what makes it harder.

They worry about him.

They want him to be safe.

They want him to have a future.

But sometimes love
doesn't mean understanding.

And he has spent years
trying to explain a person
they don't seem to know how to see.

He wants to tell them
what goes on inside his head.

He wants to explain
why certain things feel wrong.

Why he questions himself.

Why he doesn't always know
how he wants to express himself.

Why he sometimes needs
to be someone different
from the person they expect him to be.

But every time he gets close
to saying it,

fear stops him.

He remembers the lectures.

The long conversations
where he tried to explain himself
and somehow ended up feeling
like he was being corrected.

He doesn't need another lecture.

He needs someone to listen.

He needs someone to say,

“I don't completely understand,
but I want to.”

Instead, he sometimes hears
what he should be doing.

What he should be thinking.

Who he should be.

And each time it happens,
another part of him retreats
behind the walls he has spent years building.

So he stays quiet.

Not because he doesn't love them.

He does.

Not because he thinks
they don't love him.

He knows they do.

But love can still feel lonely
when the person loving you
doesn't understand the parts of you
you're most afraid to show.

Then come the consequences.

His devices get taken away.

The screen goes dark.

The messages stop.

The conversations disappear.

And suddenly,
the people he finally trusted
are somewhere beyond reach.

The friends he spent years
trying to find.

The people who listened
without turning every feeling
into a lecture.

The people who made him
remember what it was like
to feel something again.

Gone from his fingertips.

He sits there
with nothing to say
and nobody to say it to.

His parents see a device
that needs to be taken away.

He sees a doorway
to the only people
who know the parts of him
he has never been able
to explain at home.

He wants them to understand
that those friendships matter.

That they aren't just strangers
on a screen.

They became pieces of a life
he had spent years believing
he could never have.

And losing contact with them
doesn't make his problems disappear.

It only makes him
feel alone with them again.

So he sits quietly,

knowing his parents love him,

knowing they are trying
to do what they believe is right,

and still wondering
if they will ever understand
that sometimes the thing
they take away from him
isn't just a device.

Sometimes it is the only place
where he has finally learned
how to be himself.

And beneath all of it
is uncertainty.

Not the kind that comes
from not knowing an answer
to a question on a test.

He understands those.

Sometimes better than
almost everyone around him.

He can look at something
and understand how it works
before the teacher has finished explaining it.

He can solve problems
that leave other people staring
at the page.

People tell him he is smart.

Sometimes they tell him
he is gifted.

He hears them.

He just doesn't believe them.

Because knowing how to understand
something outside of himself
has never taught him
how to understand himself.

He can explain equations.

He can memorize facts.

He can see patterns
other people miss.

Yet when someone asks him
who he is,

his mind goes completely quiet.

He can know so much
and still feel like
he knows nothing.

That contradiction
follows him everywhere.

He wants everything he does
to be perfect.

Not good.

Not decent.

Perfect.

Because if something is perfect,
maybe nobody can criticize it.

Maybe nobody can tell him
he wasn't good enough.

Maybe he can finally feel
like he has done something right.

It is why he keeps himself
away from art.

He wants to draw.

He wants to create.

He wants to put the things
inside his head
somewhere outside of himself.

But he imagines the finished picture
before he ever touches the page.

Every mistake becomes enormous.

Every imperfect line
feels like proof
that he was never good at it.

So the pencil stays down.

The blank page stays blank.

And the thing he wanted to create
never gets the chance to exist.

His fear of failure
has learned how to disguise itself
as preparation.

He tells himself
he isn't ready yet.

He tells himself
he needs to learn more first.

He tells himself
he will try when he knows
he can do it correctly.

Sometimes years pass
while he is still waiting
to feel ready.

He does the same thing
with new experiences.

New places.

New hobbies.

New people.

Anything unfamiliar
makes his mind search
for everything that could go wrong.

The unknown feels dangerous
even when it isn't.

So he stays with what he knows.

The same routines.

The same places.

The same few things
he has already learned
how to survive.

He watches other people
try something for the first time
and wonders what it must feel like
not to be terrified of being bad at it.

He wishes he could simply begin.

Without calculating every outcome.

Without imagining every failure.

Without needing to know
exactly where the road ends
before taking the first step.

But uncertainty is everywhere.

In his identity.

In his friendships.

In his future.

In the person he might become.

And he has spent so long
trying to protect himself
from uncertainty

that sometimes he forgets
that certainty was never promised
in the first place.

He doesn't know
who he will be tomorrow.

He doesn't know
which friendships will last.

He doesn't know
whether his parents
will ever understand.

He doesn't know
whether the voices will quiet.

He doesn't know
whether he will ever look
at a blank page
and stop being afraid of it.

He doesn't know
what waits beyond
the things he already knows.

And that terrifies him.

But somewhere beneath
all that fear,

there is still a boy
who wants to find out.

Even if he isn't ready yet.

Even if he doesn't know how.

Even if the first attempt
isn't perfect.

Because maybe the things
he has spent his life avoiding

are not proof
that he is incapable.

Maybe they are simply
things he has never been given
the chance to learn.

And now he reaches a point
where he doesn't want to share anymore.

He doesn't want to open another door.

He doesn't want to explain himself
to people who might not understand.

He doesn't want another lecture.

Another question.

Another moment of watching
someone's expression change
after he tells them something real.

He wants to keep everything inside.

It feels safer there.

But somewhere inside himself,
he knows what happens
if he keeps doing that.

The days begin to blur together.

He wakes up around noon.

He barely eats.

He goes upstairs
and disappears into his devices.

Hours pass.

The afternoon becomes evening.

The evening becomes night.

Night becomes early morning.

Then he finally sleeps,

only to wake up
and do it all again.

A life reduced to repetition.

Wake.

Hide.

Scroll.

Sleep.

Repeat.

And he knows
that this cannot be his entire life.

He knows the cycle
will keep going
if he never lets anyone in.

He doesn't have to tell everyone.

He doesn't have to explain everything
all at once.

But he knows he has to say something.

Because keeping every thought
locked inside his head
has never made the thoughts disappear.

It has only made the walls higher.

And now he stands
between two frightening possibilities:

opening the door
and letting someone see
what is really inside,

or staying behind it
until the same days
become years.

He doesn't know
which choice will be harder.

He only knows
that something has to change.

What if he tells someone
and everything changes?

What if it doesn't?

What if they listen?

What if they don't?

What if they finally understand him?

What if they look at him differently afterward?

What if the people he trusts
eventually leave?

What if they stay?

What if he is capable
of becoming someone different?

What if he isn't?

What if tomorrow feels exactly like today?

What if the next morning
is just another noon?

Another empty meal.

Another quiet room.

Another night spent staring
at a glowing screen
while the hours disappear.

What if this is all he ever becomes?

What if the walls never come down?

What if the voices never become quiet?

What if he never learns
how to explain what he feels?

What if he keeps waiting
for the courage to change
until there is nothing left
but the waiting?

He doesn't know.

And that may be
the thought that frightens him most.

Not knowing whether
the next day will finally be different,

or whether he will wake up
and find himself standing
in the exact same place,

asking the same questions,

hiding behind the same silence,

and wondering how much longer
he can keep living
inside a life
that never seems to move.

He wants a person,
Any person,
That he can tell
“I’m not doing okay at the moment,
And I need help.”