The Stage Called “I Don’t Care“
I said it yesterday like a vow I never meant to keep— “I no longer care what people think.” And it felt like freedom, the way a falling leaf feels like flight until it hits the ground. I told myself this was power. That this was healing. That this was me, raw and roaring— the kind of unfiltered that makes poets weep and ex-lovers regret walking away. But the silence after saying it was a different kind of scream. Not defiant. Not brave. More like someone whispering into an attic box, “Please don’t look too close.” Because the truth is— maybe it’s not that I don’t care. Maybe it’s that I’ve cared so much for so long that caring became a scab I kept picking just to prove I could still feel. Maybe I’ve mistaken dissociation for self-acceptance. Like calling a shutdown an awakening. Like naming numbness “empowerment” because the opposite feels like drowning in slow motion. I am me. With every quirk that once got me bullied and every misdeed I can’t vacuum out of memory. With the timeline t...