Time doesn’t always tick loud.
Sometimes
it sits in the corner of your room
with its arms folded
watching you try to survive yourself.
There are nights
when the clock on the wall
sounds like a judge.
Tick.
You’re still not enough.
Tick.
You should be further by now.
Tick.
Why are you like this?
And nobody hears it
but you.
Mental health doesn’t always look like breaking down.
Sometimes it looks like showing up to work smiling.
Sometimes it looks like laughing too loud.
Sometimes it looks like being the strong one
because if you stop being strong
everything collapses.
Sometimes it looks like silence.
And silence can be so loud
it shakes the ribs.
There are people walking around
carrying storms in their chest
with sunshine on their face.
People who say “I’m good”
because explaining the truth
feels heavier than holding it.
People who have mastered the art
of disappearing
in rooms full of love.
Time watches all of this.
Time watches you scroll at 2:17 a.m.
looking for something
you can’t name.
Time watches you reread messages
that made you question your worth.
Time watches you stare at the ceiling
negotiating with thoughts
that don’t negotiate back.
And the dangerous thing about time
is that when you’re hurting
it stretches.
Minutes become miles.
A single hour
can feel like a lifetime
you don’t want to live through.
But listen to me.
If you are in that hour—
the one where your chest feels tight
and your thoughts feel sharp—
you are not alone.
I know the lie your mind tells you.
It says:
“You’re a burden.”
“No one would understand.”
“They have their own problems.”
“Just deal with it.”
But your mind
is not always a reliable narrator.
Pain edits the story.
Pain cuts out the parts
where people care.
Pain erases the evidence
of every time someone checked on you
and you said “I’m fine”
when you weren’t.
There is someone.
Maybe you haven’t called them yet.
Maybe you haven’t met them yet.
Maybe they’re a friend waiting for honesty.
Maybe they’re a stranger trained to listen.
Maybe they’re the future version of you
begging you to hold on.
But there is someone.
And if your brain is telling you
that there isn’t—
That is the illness talking.
Not the truth.
Mental health struggles
don’t mean you’re weak.
It means your mind
has been fighting battles
without backup.
It means you’ve been carrying years
in your bloodstream.
It means you’ve been surviving things
you never got to unpack.
And survival
is exhausting.
Time knows.
Time has seen you
sit in your car before going inside
just to breathe.
Time has seen you
cry in the shower
so no one hears.
Time has seen you
write messages
and delete them
because vulnerability feels like jumping
without knowing who will catch you.
But hear me.
There are hands.
You just have to reach.
And I know reaching
feels like the hardest thing in the world.
Because what if they don’t understand?
What if they minimize it?
What if they say,
“Other people have it worse”?
But what if
they don’t?
