The worst isnāt death.
Death is honest.
It arrives, it ends.
Clean.
The worst is staying.
Breathing.
Functioning.
While everything that made you you
quietly rots beneath the skin.
When you watch your passions
starve to death
and canāt even bother
to grieve them.
When the people you loved
become background noise,
and you answer with nods
because words cost too much.
When nothing is worth arguing for,
and silence feels
like mercy.
This isnāt a fall.
Itās slow erasure
each day
another fingerprint gone
from the glass.
Until one morning,
you look in the mirror
and meet
a very polite stranger.
This poem explores emotional erosion - not dramatic collapse, but the quiet, daily loss of passion, purpose, and self. It reflects the darker side of psychological burnout, where apathy masquerades as peace, and survival becomes indistinguishable from surrender.
