Worn Like a Lie

  They call me kind.

  They say it like it’s a compliment, like it explains me.

  But kindness isn’t a virtue.

  It’s a reflex.

  A script. A soft-edged lie you learn to tell when the truth’s too heavy to carry in public.

  I wake up the same way every morning—alone, unmissed, and a little late. Not out of laziness, but because sleep’s a stubborn bastard, and I’ve forgotten how to court it properly.

  There’s a thin crust of frost on the inside of my window, like the glass is trying to hold something in. Or keep something out.

  I pull myself out of bed with the same energy I reserve for funerals. I shave, brush my teeth, fix my hair like someone might be watching.

  No one ever is. But rituals have their uses. They give shape to the nothing.

  I live on the third floor of a building that smells like boiling cabbage and broken elevators. My neighbor, Mrs. Bell, leaves her trash outside her door like it’s someone else’s job.

  It’s not. But I take it down anyway.

  She’s old, sweet, a little crooked around the edges. Calls me “dear” and offers candy that expired when VHS was still a thing.

  I always smile. Always accept, just as complacent as she is in the lie.

  You learn to take what people give. It makes them feel like they matter. Like any of this matters.

  That’s the trick, really. You don’t have to give people what they need. Just what they recognize.

  Work is a quiet circle of hell—a cubicle graveyard filled with half-dead voices and eyes that never meet mine for long.

  I’m the guy who remembers birthdays, who refills the coffee, who notices when someone’s kid has a cold or when they’re too quiet on a Wednesday.

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  They love that about me.

  They love that I see them.

  But What they never ask is whether anyone sees me.

  And that’s fine.

  Hell, it’s even ideal.

  See You start out pretending you don’t need connection. You play the monk, the quiet sage, the background extra in everyone else’s movie.

  You get good at it. Real good. So good, they start calling you wise. Empathic. Safe.

  But underneath it all, you’re just another lost thing pacing the floorboards of your own skull, looking for a door that doesn’t exist anymore.

  I’ve been like this as long as I can remember—this gentle fraud of a man, well-mannered and efficient, the kind of guy who makes you think of autumn leaves and freshly brewed coffee.

  My voice? Polished. Warm.

  My eyes? Tired, but considerate.

  But inside?

  It’s just static.

  A low hum of absence wearing a cardigan and a clean shave.

  People think I’m a good listener. What they don’t realize is, I have to listen. It’s how I survive. Pattern recognition becomes a survival tactic. Every word, every shift of weight, every blink too long or not long enough—I catch it all. Not out of curiosity. Out of necessity. Like a soldier who’s learned to hear the difference between silence and danger.

  Problem is, once you start listening like that, you can’t turn it off.l, And you realize how little anyone actually says.

  That’s the epitome of loneliness there. To cry out into the void any hear nothing but your own agony screaming back at you.

  Still…

  The girl at the café tells me about her ex. The guy at the gas station complains about his boss. My manager thinks I have an old soul, whatever the hell that means.

  They all talk like I’m a priest, a confessional booth with a beating heart. And I nod, smile, offer the right words in the right tone, timed to hit just before the silence turns heavy.

  And then they leave, lighter.

  And I stay, heavier.

  Burdened.

  Alone.

  Tonight, I walk home under a sky the color of a dying television—flat, gray, static. A few streetlights flicker like they’re trying to decide whether to give up or hold on a little longer.

  I relate. Hard not too.

  I pass a girl on the corner, young, maybe twenty. Hoodie, backpack, thousand-yard stare. She’s not looking for help, but she’s bleeding need from every pore.

  I stop. Offer her a cigarette. She says she doesn’t smoke, but she takes it anyway. We don’t talk. She nods. I nod. And we part ways like ghosts on intersecting tracks.

  I’m not trying to save anyone.

  I just don’t know how to stop handing out pieces of myself.

  Back in my apartment, I don’t turn on the lights. I sit in the dark.

  The city hums outside—soft, electric, indifferent. I think about calling someone. But there’s no one to call. Or maybe there is, but the space between us is too wide, and I’ve forgotten the language of reaching out.

  I open a book. Not to read it. Just to hear the sound of paper moving. Something real. Something weightless.

  Inside the cover, I find a note I wrote a few months ago.

  It says: “You’re not unlovable. You’re just never seen long enough to be loved.”

  I fold it back inside. That version of me was wrong, but sweet. I hated him for it.

  I pour a drink. Whiskey.

  Cheap, unpretentious, warm on the way down. I think about how tomorrow I’ll wake up and do it all again—help the old lady, refill the coffee, listen to the lives of people who think I’m okay.

  And I will be. Not because I am.

  Because someone has to be.

  That’s the thing about masks.

  They don’t just hide you. They become you. You wear them so long that your real face forgets how to move.

  I look in the mirror. The man staring back is everything people say he is—calm, kind, well-kept, reliable.

  A good man.

  He smiles.

  And I smile too.

  Just enough to forget the monster I feel I am.