[One Verse — Slam Poetry, breath-led, unfiltered, rising and falling intensity]
I don’t always hear “kill yourself”…
sometimes it’s quieter than that—
…more patient…
more convincing…
like—
why are you still here?
…why are you dragging it out like the ending ain’t already written?
(…pause…)
I’ve seen this before.
Not déjà vu—
…nah, this is pattern recognition.
This is my brain flipping through failures like flashcards
and getting every answer right.
Every time I try—
it says, “we’ve run this simulation… you lose here too.”
And it’s not loud—
that’s the part people don’t get.
It’s the silence that suffocates.
That tunnel vision—
like the world got edges now…
like everything outside the pain just… fades out of rendering distance…
(heavy breath)
My hands shake like they know something I don’t—
or maybe something I do.
Tears show up uninvited—
no sobbing, no warning…
just leaking evidence.
My chest—
…tight…
like it’s bracing for impact that never actually lands.
And my thoughts don’t stop—
they don’t even sprint anymore, they loop—
same questions, same endings, same dead conclusions:
It doesn’t get better.
You’ve already seen the best part.
This is the part where it slowly collapses.
(…long pause…)
And the scariest part?
I start believing it.
Not because I want to—
but because it sounds… familiar.
Like a script I didn’t write
but somehow memorized anyway.
(voice lowers)
And I don’t even want to die…
not really…
I just don’t understand
why I’m still being asked to stay.
(soft exhale)
…if this is all it’s ever gonna be.
(very quiet)
But somewhere—
buried under the noise…
there’s a voice that don’t argue…
it just asks—
“what if you’re wrong this time?”