don't read this.

this is a mirror.

don’t read this.
you’re too busy surviving your own reflection
and catching the next train to perfection
too sure the next thing you buy or cry over
will be the same fucking thing that stitches your name 
back to your breath.

don’t read this.
you're still romanticizing the rope 
that’s already around your neck
because it feels more polite than facing
the life you claim you want.

don’t read this.
unless you’re willing to admit
that you’ve made an art form of outrunning yourself
by calling it ambition when it’s starvation dripping in designer
and manic coping in better lighting.

don’t read this.
if you’re still mistaking exhaustion for meaning
if you still believe wholeness is something you earn
after enough people clap for your courage.

this is not a sermon for the sheep.
this is not a sugar pill for the fatigued.
this is an eviction notice for the part of you
still trying to control what was meant to undress you.

don’t read this if you still think survival is a trophy.
don’t read this if you need a twelve-step nervous system routine for peace.
don’t read this if you’re looking for a prettier way to drown.

because what I’m about to say is unbearable:

no one is fucking coming.
no one is coming to soften the edge of the blade you’ve been swallowing all your life.
no one is coming to give you back the person you abandoned for applause.

and if you’re lucky,
you will wake up one morning so disgusted by your own betrayal
that you will tear down the cathedral you built to your coping mechanisms
and finally kneel at the altar of your actual name.

and then 
you will become free enough 
to survive yourself without permission.

so don’t read this.
unless you’re willing to lose the life that’s killing you.

unless you’re willing to mourn the myth of control
and nurture the ruins of your own resurrection.

unless you’re willing to remember
you were never broken —
only buried.