That Flickering Spark

I think it's fading but was it ever burning to begin with?

(3/8/26 14:33 sun - 3/18/2615:06 wed)

I don’t like this anymore. I don’t think I ever did.

I’m so tired. I remember feeling like this last year but it wasn’t this bad.

This is more than just tiredness.

This is bone-deep, long overdue burnout.

This is running on low fuel without knowing if there’s a gas station ahead.

This is blindly running into a forest with no clue whether there’s an end to the trees.

This is hopelessly hoping that there’s an end to every worse day.

This is moving without real purpose.

This is stretching myself so thin I’m transparent.

This is trying to be everything they want me to be while completely unraveling everything I am as a person.

This is suppressing everything in me that’s screaming to stop and please slow down.

This is sacrificing rest and precious sleep for staying up late because it’s the only peace I ever get.

This is constantly being “on” without knowing how to find the “off” button.

This is constantly feeling the need to keep performing even when there’s no audience.

This is deep fear of someone seeing me as my deepest, rawest self and covering it up with a practiced socially accepted personality that’s safe to display.

This is me crying for help but my voice is gone so no one can hear me anymore.

This is me quietly giving up but still moving because I’m always “on”.

This is me slowly unbecoming myself and gradually losing my spark because I’ve finally run out of fuel.

I genuinely am falling apart. If I slow down too much, I know I’m going to break and I don’t think I’ll have the strength to put myself back together again.

I’m constantly moving, constantly busy because that’s the pace my life is requiring me to move right now.

Do I like it? Absolutely not, I’m actually dying inside. But I can’t let anyone see that because it would hurt them and I don’t want that.

Can I stop and slow down? Not really, not for very long.

Have I lost myself yet? Not yet but I’m getting there.

How am I still going? Kpop. Creativity. Art. Sketching. Music. Those things are keeping me alive right now.

No one will ever know just how much I was struggling to simply hold on in my lowest moments. No one will ever know just how lost I really am. No one will ever know me because someone once did get to know too much of me and their response made me withdraw so much I ended up permanently wounding myself because of it.

No one will know just how much of me I’ve lost, how much I’m breaking.

I’m a shapeshifter, because I can become anything you want, because I will do anything to please you. I will do anything to keep everyone happy.

I will bend so far until I break just so I can keep the peace.

I will always put myself last because I learned the hard way that trying to put myself first was selfish and only led to deep feelings of guilt and shame. Shame in wanting to be just a little selfish sometimes.

I will always validate everyone’s feelings because no one took the time or effort or energy to validate mine enough that it stuck.

I will always be everything but myself, because I was never taught to take up space.

I was taught to make space, make room for everyone and everything but myself.

The fine line between people-pleasing and genuinely wanting to help people can be so blurry sometimes.

But even while my current living situation is slowly unraveling every piece of me I’m still trying to carefully sew back together, I still have some small piece, some remnant, some form of a fragment of myself intact.

Even when I can’t see an end to the bad days, I’m still fighting.

Because some part of me knows, there’s more to life than this.

There has to be, because I don’t know what I’ll do if there isn’t. But I know it’s possible.

I know because someone once told me that “failure isn’t final”.

I may feel like a failure every day, I may feel like I’m always too scared to try because I’m afraid to fail, but there is always some part of me still trying, still giving my all, still moving forward. No matter how slow.

And I’m hoping, with everything I am, that one day, I can stop in the middle of my day without feeling the need to hurry someplace, without feeling the need to be helpful.

I’m hoping that one day, I won’t fear that the voice inside of me is right—that I’m useless.

That if I stop moving, if I stop performing, I’ll lose all my value.

Because that’s all I’ve been doing all my life—performing, playing my part to perfection, existing with a fear that there’s an expiration date to the love I receive that seems to be based on how well I perform.

If there’s one thing Kpop taught me, it’s that passion and determination can take you far. It takes a lot of hard work but so many Kpop idols proved that they love expressing themselves through dancing and singing and songwriting so much that even the worse days weren’t enough to snuff out their spark.

I’m hoping I always keep my spark, no matter what, just like they did.

I’m hoping I never lose sight of what makes me burn brighter, of what ignites my sense of curiosity and wonder and creativity.