I walk… but it feels like the floor forgets me.
Like every step I take disappears before it lands.
I’m here—but not really here.
A shadow wearing skin,
A name with no echo,
A house with no lights on.
The world moves like a film I’ve already watched
—except now, I’m not in the cast.
I’m just glass.
People talk and their words pass through me,
not around me… through.
I laugh sometimes.
It’s hollow.
Like tapping on an empty can,
hoping for soup.
But there’s nothing in it—
never was.
I don’t cry much anymore.
Even the tears have packed their bags,
decided I wasn’t worth the water.
My heart?
It used to be an orchestra.
Now it’s just static.
A distant radio playing songs I can’t name
from a place I can’t remember.
And my soul…
my soul is like an abandoned station—
trains used to come and go,
but now the tracks are rusted,
and the ticket windows closed.
I miss feeling.
Not just the good stuff—
I’d take anything.
Pain would be proof.
Grief would be a guest.
But this…
this silence inside me is a fog that forgets
even my own name.
People say, “You’re strong.”
But strength isn’t the same as alive.
A stone is strong.
So is a tombstone.
Sometimes I stare at the ceiling
and wonder if it remembers when I cared.
When I prayed.
When I dreamed.
When I believed mornings meant something.
But I still wake up.
Still eat.
Still breathe.
Still move my mouth when I have to.
I guess that counts.
I guess I’m still here.
But not really.
Michael Forty