rotten

at seventeen, i feel like i’m collapsing in on myself, as if my body has turned against me too soon. my bones ache like ancient wood, splintering under the weight of a life barely lived. every joint feels swollen with rust, creaking with each movement, brittle and fragile, as if one wrong step could shatter me entirely. i wake up each morning with the same thought: is this the day i finally break? it’s strange, isn’t it? how the body can decay while the mind stays painfully aware? i think about an apple left too long on a windowsill, its once-shiny skin softening, dark spots spreading like a slow poison. that’s what i see when i look at my hands—thin, veined, trembling like leaves clinging to a branch in the wind. i am rotting, but the world expects me to ripen. sometimes, i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and don’t recognize the reflection. the sunken cheeks, the dullness in my eyes, the way my skin seems to sag over bone as if even it’s tired of holding on. my body is tired—i am tired. at an age when i should be running, laughing, feeling invincible, i’m here—weak, hollow, a shell of what i thought i'd be.

there are nights when the pain drags me to my knees, when i whisper prayers i swore u’d never say, asking God to give me just a little more time. it feels cruel, begging for life now, when i used to plead for the opposite. i remember those nights too well, crying into my pillow, praying for Him to end it, to take me away from the weight of existence. now i cling to it, desperate, apologizing for ever asking to leave. maybe this is my punishment. maybe i spoke this into being, cursed myself with those prayers whispered in anger and despair. i think about that sometimes—that this is my fault; that my sickness is the price i pay for not wanting life badly enough when i had the chance. my hands, once steady, tremble as i clasp them in prayer, my voice hoarse from begging. there’s no dignity in it, no poetry—just raw, animal desperation. let me stay, i plead. let me stay a little longer. i’ll do anything, just don’t take me yet.

but my body betrays me more each day. my bones are porous, crumbling from the inside like dried clay. my lungs feel thin, like they might tear if i breathe too deeply. even my thoughts feel slow, as though my mind is decaying alongside the rest of me. i think about time—how everything rots eventually, but i feel as though i’ve been cheated. i was meant to be fresh and full of life, but instead, i’m decomposing before i’ve even had the chance to ripen. people say your teen years are the prime of your life, but i feel ancient, older than the sky, older than the dirt beneath my feet.  

some days, i wonder if God hears me at all. if He’s watching, silent, as i wither away. if He remembers the nights i begged Him to take me, and this is His answer. or maybe there’s no answer at all—just the slow, inevitable march of decay, the curse of being alive.

everything rots. i know that. but i didn’t think it would happen to me so soon. i didn’t think i’d feel my body give up before i had the chance to truly use it. i didn’t think i’d hear my own breath rattling like loose change, or feel my legs tremble under a weight i can’t even see. people tell me to hold on, to fight, but how do you fight a battle you’ve already lost? how do you claw your way back to life when your hands are too weak to hold onto anything at all? i sit with this knowledge sometimes, staring at the cracks in the ceiling like they might hold an answer. but there’s nothing there—just the creeping stillness of time passing, of my body folding in on itself piece by piece. it’s the waiting that gets me, the slow realization that no prayer can stop what’s coming. and yet, i keep praying. i keep begging for just one more day, one more week, one more fleeting moment to feel like a person again. not this fragile, brittle thing, but someone whole. it’s cruel, isn’t it? to taste life and know it’s slipping away too fast. to know that someday, sooner than it should be, i'll be gone and the world will move on without me. the grass will grow, the sun will rise, people will laugh, and i'll be nothing but a memory—if even that. i want to scream at the unfairness of it, to demand answers, but all i can do is sit in this failing body and wait. wait for the inevitable, for the slow rot to finish what it started. and even then, i'll probably still be begging, whispering my prayers into the darkness, hoping that this time, someone is listening.

—✶ L