INTERNAL COLLAPSE
Lunch
“I was so far away that I lost it and didn’t want to be anywhere rather than be lost in nothingness”
We packed lunch. That’s what you do, right? Family trip, avoid the cake shop, avoid – whatever. We packed lunch. Turkey sandwiches. I cut the crusts off. I smiled when I handed them out.
It was so bright outside. Too bright. The kind of day people call beautiful, and you have to agree because what else do you say? Yeah, it’s beautiful. My face hurt from smiling. Sunburn maybe. Or just. The smiling.
I kept thinking about black holes. How they’re supposed to be empty, but they’re not, they’re so dense nothing escapes. Not even light. I read that somewhere. Couldn’t stop thinking about it while we ate the sandwiches.
My kid asked if I was okay, and I said Yeah, of course, why? And they said you’re being quiet, and I said I’m just tired, which is true. I am tired. I’ve been tired for –
How long can you be tired before you’re not tired any more? Before, it was just what you are now?
I wanted to tell them: I feel like I’m watching myself from outside. Like I’m performing as a person, and I’ve forgotten my lines, but everyone’s still watching, so I keep going. Plug me in, reboot me, I don’t know. Something’s not working right.
But you don’t say that. You say I’m fine, just tired.
The thing is, I love them. I do. I love them so much it makes me want to scream sometimes because what if I can’t – what if this thing inside me that’s hollow and dark and spreading, what if it reaches them? What if they see it?
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I hate this. I hate feeling like this. But it’s always there now. The void. That’s dramatic, calling it the void. But that’s what it feels like. This absence is where something used to be. Something that made me feel real.
I keep digging and trying to find it, trying – I lost it. But the more I dig, the bigger the hole gets, and I can’t – I don’t know how to stop.
We finished lunch. Threw away the wrappers. My kid said Thanks, Mum. Or Dad. They said thanks. And I smiled again, and my face hurt again, and I thought: I’m already dead inside. I’m already gone. But I’m still here. Still packing lunches and still smiling.
How, still at work?
I want to fight this. I do. I want to stand up and say No, I won’t let this take me. But I’m so tired. And it’s easier to just. Keep going. Keep performing. Keep digging.
Maybe that’s the same thing. Fighting and giving up. Maybe there’s no difference any more.
The sun was so bright. My kid was laughing about something. The day was beautiful. Everyone said so.
And I was so far away. We were in the same place, but I was so far away.
I don’t know how to get back.
I don’t know if I want to.
I don’t know.
© Miguel Santiago, 2026. All rights reserved
