There is a kind of exhaustion that sleep cannot soothe—a point where you realize that being “good” is merely a mask, one that slowly tightens around your own throat.

You stare at your phone screen—1:14 AM—and realize that you are still breathing. Unfortunately, you are still breathing.

Outside, the rain seems intent on tearing the roof off your room, yet the noise inside your head is far louder. You’re tired, aren’t you? Tired of being a “sun” forced to shine every single day, just so others don’t have to feel the cold. You know the bitterest secret of all: people love your light, but they turn away the moment you begin to show your storms. When you are sad, you are a “nuisance.” When you are angry, you are “pollution.” And so, you learn the most tragic lesson of all: that weeping alone beneath your blankets is the only way to remain, in the eyes of others, “good.”

You glance around your room. On the bookshelf, there’s a collection of Chicken Soup books—Think Positive, Angels Among Us, Finding Happiness. Each title feels like a sharp slap in the silence. In the corner, on your vanity, pink chrysanthemums and yellow gerberas remain in their pots, looking fresh and beautiful—a stark contrast to your own soul, which lies crawling upon the floor.

You look at yourself in the mirror. A narcissistic side of you whispers cruelly: you are beautiful, you are smart, you are funny. But in the very same instant, your soul strikes back even harder: “So what? In the end, no one truly wants to stay.” You stare at your reflection and think, “I wouldn’t marry me either.” You feel like a beautiful product with a “defective” label hidden where no one can see it.

God keeps watch over you through a suffocating sense of regret. It is as if He desperately wants you to be a good person, sending waves of remorse every time you brush against something dark. Yet, whenever you feel like giving up, He stirs a sense of guilt regarding your mother. You fear her leaving you, but you fear even more the possibility that you might go first—leaving behind an incurable wound in her heart. You are trapped in the middle: unable to go on living, yet too afraid to die, because you cannot bear to hurt the only person who loves you unconditionally.

The rain intensifies. You deliberately skip gatherings with the people you cherish most—not out of hatred, but because you love them so deeply that you cannot bear for them to witness the corpse of your own happiness. You wish to vanish. Not necessarily to die, but simply to have never existed at all. Because, as it turns out, being “good” is merely the slowest form of suicide.

I am nothing more than a part of this early-morning rain—existing to drench the earth, only to fade away completely when dawn breaks, with no one ever truly caring how weary I was as I fell.

Written to the rhythm of an early-morning rain that refuses to cease, on Sunday, January 18, 2026.