I don’t want to die.
I want life to stop feeling like a battle.
I want a ceasefire.
I want to put everything down without it being called giving up.
I want the noise to stop for long enough to remember who I was before survival became my full-time job.
They call it the call of the void, like it’s poetic, like it’s a whisper from somewhere mysterious.
But it isn’t gentle.
It’s abrupt.
A flash of thought that doesn’t knock.
What if I stepped off?
What if I let go?
What if I didn’t have to hold all of this anymore?
And then the shame arrives, right on cue.
Because I’m not supposed to think that.
Because I have a child.
Because I love people.
Because I am still here.
But there isn’t some dramatic reason behind it.
No single moment where everything broke.
It’s just been shit after shit after shit, stacked so close together I never got the chance to recover from one thing before the next arrived.
People want a reason.
They always do.
As if pain needs to be justified to be real.
As if exhaustion has to earn permission.
But this isn’t a breakdown.
It’s wear.
It’s what happens when you live in a constant state of bracing.
When you wake up already tense.
When even the quiet moments feel dangerous because they leave space for thoughts to sharpen.
Anger lives right under it all.
Anger at how much I’ve carried.
Anger at how long I’ve been strong.
Anger at being told survival should feel like gratitude.
Sadness sits beside it — old, heavy, tired of explaining itself.
The kind of sadness that doesn’t cry anymore because crying never changed anything.
Anxiety hovers above everything, convinced something worse is coming, scanning for danger in places that are supposed to be safe.
And numbness — numbness is what happens when my system finally says enough.
Not peace.
Not relief.
Just absence.
A vacuum where feelings cancel each other out and leave nothing but breath and habit.
They say only those who go over the edge know where it is.
I don’t believe that.
I think some of us live with our toes curled over it.
Day after day.
Looking down not because we want to jump —
but because we’re trying to understand why standing upright hurts so much.
The void doesn’t promise death.
It promises silence.
And when your head is loud with what-ifs and should-haves and never-agains, silence feels like mercy.
I don’t want to win.
I don’t want a medal for resilience.
I don’t want to be inspirational.
I want mornings that don’t feel like returning to the front line.
I want my body to stop holding memories like weapons.
I want my brain to stop treating existence like a threat.
I keep going not because life feels good,
but because there are hands I refuse to drop.
Because love exists, even when carrying it alongside this much weight hurts.
But some days staying feels less like a choice and more like an obligation I’m scared to admit I resent.
That doesn’t make me broken.
It makes me human in a world that doesn’t rest.
So yes, sometimes I hear it.
Not a command.
Not a plan.
Just a question.
And I answer it the same way every time —
by staying.
By breathing.
By carrying on while quietly wishing life didn’t demand endurance as proof of worth.
The call of the void isn’t about wanting to end.
It’s about wanting rest.
Real rest.
The kind you don’t have to fight for.