The Ink Chapel

Sometimes I think
everybody learned how to live
except me.

Like there was a class in school
where they handed out instructions
on how to answer texts,
pay bills on time,
keep friendships alive,
fold laundry before it becomes furniture,
and not cry in grocery store parking lots.
And somehow I was absent that day.

Some days I feel too much.
The light is too bright.
The room is too loud.
A single sentence can sit in my chest
for three straight days
like a song stuck on repeat.
Meanwhile everyone else walks around
like carrying a heart is easy.

And then there are the strange little moments
that keep me here anyway.
Cold sheets after a shower.
The smell of rain on hot pavement.
Hearing someone laugh so hard
they can’t breathe.
Finding an old receipt in your pocket
from a day you forgot mattered.

I think a lot of us are just pretending.
Pretending we know where we’re going.
Pretending we aren’t scared of being forgotten.
Pretending we don’t rehearse conversations
in the shower
or replay old mistakes at 2 a.m.
like directors editing a movie
nobody else remembers.

But maybe being human
was never about having it together.
Maybe it’s just this:
loving people while knowing they can leave,
trying again after embarrassing yourself,
feeding the dog while your own world is falling apart,
answering “I’m fine”
when you mean
“I am held together by divine intervention.”

And maybe that’s enough today.
Maybe the bravest people
are not the loud ones
or the fearless ones.
Maybe they are the people
who wake up every morning
with heavy hearts and trembling hands
and still say,
“Alright.
One more day.”

Footnote: Humanity is honestly just a giant group project where nobody read the instructions and one guy is eating glue in the corner. 😭