LISTEN TO ARTICLESynthesized Narration • 0:00 / 0:00

The party was over the moment I opened my eyes. Balloons lay scattered like fragile hopes. A birthday cake that once marked my importance had collapsed, and the pop of party poppers had been swallowed by the storm of my mother’s rage. I fear the moment I speak the words I shouldn’t ask, fearing they will shatter the walls I built to keep myself sane. Yet the question—“Do you regret giving birth to me?”—rolls out effortlessly. When she says yes, I don’t curl into sadness. I stare at her as if through a pane of glass fogged with emptiness. My soul aches at the truth she tries to protect, while my heart echoes in nothing. Her presence in my life became that of a neighbor—a house I pass by but never enter. I watch her survive, crawling through the contest of life to keep us alive, while my own time seems frozen. Around me, people pass faster than I can keep up, seeking empathy—a language I’ve long forgotten. My jar tries to fill itself, yet it cracks under the weight of emptiness. My room became an isolation of comfort, a medicine for ending a story that had never truly begun. Yet it only wraps me tighter in silence, making my veins ache for the guidance of cuts. The deeper the wounds, the more my soul shatters, like a fish stranded in its own empty pond. I gaslight myself until I believe I am healed, but the truth is I am running—fleeing from the reality that my own cracks demand answers. Every step forward echoes as three steps back, ringing through the hollow chambers of my being. And as I sink into this feeling, I am completely numb—trapped in the idea of feeling nothing . Like, floating water slowly trying to get to the shore, but you're not doing anything to get there—you just float and let the water lead you wherever it wants. I don’t know what to feel; I don’t know what to show. I just feel nothing. Questioning myself why I can’t face my problems alone. But the answer always drifts back to the same emptiness: it’s impossible to face reality when you feel nothing. No empathy, no happiness, no love—only the hollow echo of nothing at all. When I turned sixteen, the life I once dreamed of became a ghost I’m too scared to face. Born into a family struggling just to survive each year, I find myself wanting to numb the pain—to end it all in a room where light has never dared to enter. Yet somehow, the fish did not end there.