The Day After I Go Missing

Chapter 1: The Weight of the Night Last night was sad in that bone-deep way sadness sometimes takes over—not loud or dramatic, but quiet, almost gentle, until you realize it’s choking you. It felt like someone dimmed the world’s volume and left me sitting in the static. My body was curled into the corner of the old couch I pulled off the curb last spring, the fabric rubbed thin, smelling faintly of dust and old smoke, but it’s mine. The only thing that feels like mine anymore. Everyone else sleeps. The city hums in the distance—a far-off buzz of tires on wet pavement, a siren maybe, or the low murmur of someone’s TV through thin apartment walls. But for me, there’s no rest. My brain spins in dizzying circles, twirling a fragile bubble of regret like it’s the only thing left to hold. I stay awake dissecting every misstep, replaying the same questions that never have answers. Why is love always an open wound for me? Why do I give it freely—my heart a door without a lock—to people who move on and never look back? I loved them with the kind of reckless devotion that makes songs and poems, but now I don’t even speak their names out loud. They’re ghosts who left fingerprints on me, and I’m the one scrubbing at the stains. Somehow, I always end up with the bruised end of everything—relationships, jobs, dreams. The worst part? I still hope. I still wait for someone to show up, to hold my face in their hands and mean it when they say they won’t leave. But night after night, the only arms around me are my own, and even they feel tired. Sometimes the longing twists into rage. I want to scream until my throat splits, until the walls shake and someone notices I exist. I want to run, leave everything behind and start over somewhere nameless, faceless, where no one knows what I’ve done or failed to do. But where do you go when you’ve already burned every bridge? When every door you could knock on has a lock and a memory that tells you to keep walking? It hurts in ways I can’t explain that the people I loved hardest made sure I had no one left standing in my corner. It wasn’t enough for them to leave; they salted the earth on their way out. Family, lovers, friends—I was easy to discard. Easy to villainize when I stopped being convenient. Being in love—real love—should feel like magic. And at its best, it does. The good moments were soft and blinding, like the world tilted in my favor for once. A hand brushing mine. A laugh that felt like a promise. But magic fades, and I can’t seem to accept that. Nothing stays. Not love, not people, not even the version of me that used to believe I deserved good things. Some nights, the mirror feels like my cruelest enemy. I catch my reflection and don’t recognize her—the flat hair, the hollow under my eyes, the twitchy way I keep checking my phone even when it’s silent. The warped version of who I thought I’d be. My mom’s absence still aches like a phantom limb. She was my anchor, even when I didn’t realize it, and without her, I’m unmoored. Sobriety was supposed to be my redemption arc, but even that slipped through my fingers. A drink here, a pill there, and now my body aches in ways I don’t talk about. Head pounding, stomach hollow, hands trembling when I wake. My health is collateral damage in the war I’ve waged against myself. Long story short, I lost my shitty-paying job at the diner, and it’s been survival mode ever since. The tips were garbage, but at least they kept the lights on. Now I’m two months behind on rent, and there’s an eviction notice taped to my door like a public announcement of my failure. The neighbors saw it before I did. One of them laughed when they walked past, a sharp little chuckle that burned worse than the paper glued to my doorframe. I try to dodge the flying monkeys—my name for all the people and forces that swoop down to remind me I’m nothing. Some days, it’s the landlord’s passive-aggressive texts. Other days, it’s the strangers online who twist my words into weapons. Bullets don’t have to be literal to leave holes. So I self-medicate. Whatever dulls the edges long enough to get through the night. I light another cigarette, sip something that burns going down, scroll until my eyes blur. The hate around me feels endless, a constant static in the air, but I cling—desperately, stupidly—to this tiny, flickering hope that love might still find me. That maybe there’s someone who won’t see me as disposable. But so far, there’s only the drowning. Every night I picture it: my body sinking into dark water, lungs filling, arms reaching. There’s no one diving in after me. No one even notices I’ve gone under. The air in my apartment feels heavy tonight, pressing down on me with a weight I can’t shake. The eviction notice flaps when the wind sneaks through the cracked window, a dry little whisper that sounds almost like laughter. The clock on the stove blinks 3:17 AM. I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning, and my stomach twists with hunger and nausea in equal measure. I think about calling someone, anyone, but my contacts list is a graveyard of burned bridges. No one wants to hear from me anymore. They’ve made that clear. And deep down, I’ve stopped wanting to beg. Somewhere outside, a car backfires. Somewhere above me, someone shouts. Life goes on for everyone else. And here I sit, drowning quietly, wondering how much lower I can sink before something snaps. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try again. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find a reason to get up before noon. Maybe tomorrow someone will notice the eviction notice and offer me kindness instead of mockery. But tonight, I’m just here, tangled in a blanket that doesn’t warm me, staring into the dark like it might offer answers. And the sick thing? Some part of me still believes love could find me. Maybe not the kind I’ve chased my whole life. Maybe something smaller. Softer. Until then, I float here, clinging to hope with shaking hands. Still drowning.