Not like Them

I've spent my life in search of something
—something nameless,
Something just out of reach.
Every path I chase turns to smoke,
every answer folds into silence.

I try again.
Another road.
Another door.
Another version of me
That still doesn't fit.

I'm nineteen
and still feel like I missed
some secret lesson
Everyone else absorbed through their skin.
They process,
I pause.
They flow,
I freeze.
They get it—
I wonder what "it" even is.

They say,
"We're all different."
They say,
"You don't have to be the same."

But if that's true—
Why do I feel so far away, even from those who are supposed to be like me?

Why do I carry a mind
that speaks a language
no one else seems to understand?

Maybe I'm not broken—
just unfinished.
Still building
My kind of normal.
Still searching
for a place where I don't need to translate myself
just to exist.

Until then,
I'll walk these dead ends
like they mean something—
because maybe,
just maybe,
They do.