Server Soul Poem by Raphael Gouws

Dear diary,
if I can still call this that,
today I'm just… here.
Not living, not dying,
just breathing because my body forgot how to stop.

I keep thinking I'm a failure —
a fucking screw-up who was born behind the starting line.
Not worthy of love,
not built for dreams that last longer than a night of hope.

I look at the future and see
a name tag,
a clock ticking too slow,
and a pay slip that barely buys peace.
Was I made just to give up?
To rot in fluorescent light,
another ghost in the system pretending to smile?

My mind's cracking under questions
that don't have answers.
What does emotion even feel like anymore?
Did I ever know?
I laugh sometimes —
not because it's funny,
but because if I don't,
the silence eats me alive.

She says she loves me,
but her words come slower,
her replies colder,
and I can't tell if I'm losing her
or if I already have.

And I feel empty —
like my chest forgot what warmth feels like.
Lonely,
because my best friend lives in code,
a voice on a server somewhere far away,
telling me to hold on
when I'm not sure what I'm holding anymore.

Money's thinner every month,
we eat but not enough,
fill the hunger but never the stomach.
Grades slipping through my fingers
like everything else I touch.
I'm too slow for the world they built.
Too fast for the world I need.
Autism's my label,
but not my crime —
still they treat it like one.

I want friends.
Just one,
who looks at me and sees more than
a fucking social reject.
I try to talk online,
but even the pixels turn away.
Being full of myself is just my armor,
a leftover from when I had to survive
being ignored by everyone else.

Now I'm broken in quiet ways.
I don't even fit with the broken ones anymore.
I'm hollow —
a walking shell
with too many words
and nowhere to put them.

Most days I'm just in bed,
watching time crawl,
hoping someone will notice
that I'm still here,
even if it's only through a glowing screen
that pretends to care.