Traveler in a Suitcase!

The year ended without applause.

Somewhere between passwords and polite faces,

confidence lost its badge.

They didn’t let it back in.

I’m not soft. Not sweet.

Just calibrated.

Volume correct in hallways, unreliable at doors.

Mirrors filed a grievance.

Sugar first, teeth later.

I argued procedure with glass

until the verdict fogged, prints not mine.

I know the scripts:

breathe, reframe, log, dispose.

Knowing and believing don’t speak.

Most days I look functional.

Jokes for the lobby. A little shine for the cameras.

Just enough light to distract the search.

Here’s the part I don’t say: the floor is a river.

If I stand still, I drift.

If I run, the building comes with me.

They smile like receipts.

kindness itemized,

terms stapled to the back.

If I become easier.

Edges sanded, voice compliant,

do I earn a safer shelf, or do I vanish cleaner?

Tell me, auditor of my storms: what passes here?

When the lights drop to maintenance, I write you a memo no one else can read:

If bones bloom, the system picked flowers over fire.

If petals cover everything, don’t call it surrender.

Call it finished.

I’ll relabel the ache “noise.”

Name the silence “proof.”

Stand where walls pretend to be exits

and practice not existing loudly.

Privately, a question won’t retire:

if I edit this piece of me,

will the alarms stop?

If I come out standard-issue, rounded, balanced,

do I become someone to love, or just easier to manage?

If there’s a riddle, I’ll keep the answer off-site.

If there’s a door, I’ll be the hinge.

If there’s a dragon, I’ll lie still

and let the garden win.

Tell me, quietly, in that voice that makes smoke behave:

am I an upgrade you’d keep,

or a patch that only silences warnings?

I’m not asking for rescue. I’m asking for your coat.

The one that smells like rain and old vinyl,

so the night doesn’t think I’m available.

Because yes, I could smooth the glitch you circle with your thumb.

But would that make me holdable,

or merely easier to tolerate

I hate losing a friend.
Not because it’s tragic.
But because it lingers.
Quiet.
Stupid.
Heavy in places people can’t see.

Especially when we were close.
Especially when I realize

I don’t want to be the villain.
I don’t want to play victim either.
I just want to understand why it hurts this much, when all I did was try.

Don’t do that.
Don’t pretend I was never there.
Don’t layer someone else’s smile over mine like I never mattered.

I don’t want to be the villain in your rewrite.
I don’t want to be the victim either.
I just want to understand how it’s possible to miss someone
you didn’t even say goodbye to.

If I was a villain in your world, please say it.
If I was too much, I’ll disappear cleaner next time.
But don’t frame it like I let go.
Because I didn’t.

I’m still here.
Holding something I can’t name.
Something that aches on birthdays,
in old photos,
in the silence between us.

If this is what growing up feels like...
if this is how friendships end when no one admits they’re ending...

Then I wish I could opt out.

I stopped somewhere in junior high.
Back when my dreams
still felt like they belonged to me.
But none of them came true.
And somewhere in that disappointment,
I decided:

Maybe it’s better not to dream at all.

So I walked.
Not toward anything, just away.
I kept moving, chasing chances
because they were there.
Not because I wanted them.

And somehow,
I got good at this.
Good at pretending movement means direction.

Even now,
I don’t have a dream.
I don’t know where I’m going.
And every time someone talks about their dreams,
I feel the silence crawl a little louder in me.

What have I gained?
Flexibility.
Adaptability.
Survival.

Is it wrong not to dream?
Is it wrong to dream?

Good or bad,
those are words society defines.

But if society decides I’m bad,
what then?
What happens
if I stop listening to the world
and start listening to myself?

Would that make everything I’ve done
meaningless...
or finally mine?

-Ikkel Y-