The Bathtub is Quiet Tonight

 

For years I felt like I should leave.

Leave — to where? I never knew.

A bus stop that never existed,

or a place just beyond the ceiling tiles,

past the lukewarm coffee cups

and the vinyl couch that always squeaked under the weight of my grief.

I sat through therapy like it was a waiting room for God —

silent, nodding,

as if agreement might save me from the silence.

But inside, my soul curled in on itself

like a receipt in a microwave,

burnt, sparking, irrelevant.

I tried to find peace,

sifted for it like glitter in a landfill,

but eventually, my fingers bled from all the broken glass.

Now, I quit.

I quit therapy.

I quit pretending this trauma is something I can reframe,

like a painting in a gallery I can’t afford to enter.

I quit performing survival

like it’s a polite job interview.

I used to write mental postcards to nowhere —

little messages from a self I didn’t recognize,

full of hope I didn’t believe in.

And one day, I realized:

those postcards were suicide notes,

dressed in metaphors and soft lighting.

Sometimes, I even cut myself

just to see how much it bleeds.

It’s like adrenaline —

a sudden, electric sting

that reminds me I still exist,

even if I don’t know why.

But now I stop.

Not because I’m brave.

Not because I’m weak.

But because I finally understand the punchline:

There is no meaning.

And the joke wasn’t funny anyway.

So tonight, I’ll run the bath —

let the porcelain fill like lungs learning to breathe again.

I’ll sit in stillness,

watch the water rise

like forgiveness I never asked for.

I’ll take deep breaths,

slow and soft like lullabies no one sang to me.

And when I’m ready,

I’ll press the blade

to the part of me that always hurt in silence.

Not to punish.

Not to prove.

Just to stop the pain.