reading room
On (Without Consent)
I don't want to die. I want to stop being on. There's a difference the body understands even if language doesn't.
Every second feels leased— rented consciousness, a meter that never pauses.
I wake already tired of being reachable, light striking the inside of my skull like a question I didn't agree to answer.
The system marks me on and expects gratitude.
Life keeps running in default mode. Processes stack. Windows refuse to close. I move through the day like a room with the lights left on for weeks— nothing happening inside it, electricity still spent.
People mistake this for sadness. Sadness still believes in contrast. What I feel is erosion: a cliff worn smooth by staying.
I move correctly. I respond. I laugh when something lands.
The laughter is accurate. I don't dispute it
But underneath there's the hum— the low current that says: still powered, still unnecessary.
Joy does not accumulate. It flashes, clears cache. No saved data. No resume later. The moment works. I am not altered.
The anguish isn't loud. That's what makes it unbearable. It's a constant, narrow pressure— like holding your breath long after you've forgotten why you started.
Every thought ends at the same closed door: how long can a person stay conscious purely out of decency?
Remaining awake has become an ethical performance.
I stay alert so other people don't have to grieve.
My endurance is harm reduction. My presence, preventative care— for everyone except me.
Love has hardened into responsibility. I don't know how to resign.
They call this motivation. They offer futures, goals, achievement— as if being operational weren't already exhausting.
I am trans in a world that calls waiting virtue. Neurodivergent in a culture that mistakes burnout for laziness. Alive in an economy that treats rest as theft.
I don't want achievement. I want cessation of demand.
I imagine a switch because switches are kind. They don't ask why. They don't require meaning. They just obey.
What I want isn't relief. It isn't healing. It's rest without symbolism— quiet that doesn't ask what I learned.
Not disappearance. Not drama. Just the mercy of a system that knows when to sleep.
This isn't despair. Despair reaches.
This is the fantasy of trusting the dark to hold.
So I do. I stay lit. Not bright. Not willing.
Just— on.
— Lilith