Hello? Are You There? It's me. A human.

 Hello? Are You There?

It's me. A human.

Drowning in a sea of people

who keep moving forward

while I sink beneath the surface.

My dog died.

The one who stayed beside me

when the doctors wouldn't save my wife.

Who left her to die.

The one who sat through every hour

of the falling apart.

Now he's gone too.

My body is breaking down piece by piece.

Compression fractures in my spine—

pain that never relents,

not for a breath,

not for a single moment of peace.

I pushed through chronic fatigue syndrome

trying to keep my business from collapsing,

pushed until my blood pressure climbed so high

it became a loaded gun at my temple.

And I'm allergic to the medications

that might save me from it.

My kidneys are failing.

My liver is worse.

Now I'm called "disabled"

A blow to the ego of a once proud man

Who stayed strong through it all

The welfare system calls this "support"—

a lifetime sentence of subsistence,

of calculating what I can't afford,

which turns out to be everything.

My car is dying

and I need it just to survive

but there's no money for repairs.

There's no money

for anything at all.

Mental health services?

A cruel joke.

Check a box on their form.

Breathe deeply, they say.

Have you tried gratitude?

I stay alive for my daughter.

That's the only reason.

Not because of hope.

Not because healing feels possible.

Not because I want to be here.

Because she already watched her mother die

and I won't let her lose me too.

So I drown slowly—

in pain that never sleeps,

in poverty that strips away dignity,

in the crushing weight of staying

when everything inside me

is begging to stop.

But I stay.

For her.

Only for her.

And some days

that reason isn't enough

to make this feel like living.

But it's enough

to keep my lungs moving.

To keep my heart beating.

Barely.