I’m still making noise

 I wake up already tired

like somebody lived my day before me
and left the weight behind.

The alarm says move.
My body says why.
Work is waiting with its mouth open
and my heart is too heavy
to drag through another ordinary day.

I need to make something.

Not because I’m inspired.
Because if I don’t
the noise stays inside me.

So I turn it into music,
dress the sadness in distortion,
put a melody around the panic
and pretend that means I’m healing.

I want the whole world watching.

There.
I said it.

I want strangers to stop scrolling
and stare long enough
to know I existed.

But everybody thinks everything is fake now.

That voice?
AI.

That picture?
AI.

That song?
Probably AI.

That feeling?
Who knows anymore.

I spent years learning how to bleed correctly
and now a button can bleed faster.

So what’s the point?

No—

don’t answer that.

I’ve heard the speeches.

Do it for yourself.
Enjoy the journey.
Success isn’t everything.

Funny how everybody loves the journey
when they aren’t the one walking it
with anxiety biting my ass
every mile forward.

Move.

Create.

Post.

Promote.

Perform.

Smile.

Refresh.

Nothing.

Refresh again.

Someone watched for three seconds.

Wonderful.

Maybe I’ll build another universe tomorrow
for someone to flick past
while sitting on the toilet.

Page.

Page.

Page.

Page.

Was that my life you just passed?

Are you still watching this?

I can’t tell anymore
if I want an audience
or witnesses.

Maybe I just need somebody to say
I saw what you made
before the machine swallowed it.

But even getting everything sounds empty.

Lonely at the top, they say.

So the bottom hurts
and the top is lonely?

Fantastic architecture.

Where exactly am I supposed to live?

Apparently somewhere in the climb.

Always climbing.

Always almost.

Always one song away
from becoming the person
I thought I would already be.

My brain keeps making things
even when I beg it to shut up.

A bass line while I’m crying.
A lyric while I’m driving.
A strange little sound
crawling underneath another miserable morning.

Maybe creation isn’t hope.

Maybe it’s a compulsion.

Maybe I keep making worlds
because this one never quite fits.

And tomorrow
I’ll probably get up again,

carry the heavy thing,

go where I don’t want to go,

come home exhausted,

open the machine,

make something strange,

throw it into the endless glowing crowd

and watch the numbers decide
whether I mattered for fifteen seconds.

Then I’ll make another.

Not because there’s something waiting
when I finally arrive.

Maybe there isn’t.

Maybe the finish line
is just another empty room
asking what comes next.

And I hate that.

And I know that.

And somehow
my hands are still reaching for the controls.

So if you’re still here—

if you haven’t flicked to the next page yet—

listen.

I’m still making noise.