MAP OF MY SOUL

 In Class 12 , everyone acts like I’ve hacked life. Teachers toss around words like “achiever kid,” relatives act like I’m the definition of “mature,” and juniors look at me as if toppers run on some secret cosmic battery. Meanwhile, the reality is I’m one unpredictable test away from fully disintegrating like a biscuit left open in monsoon . It’s weird how people build this image of you that feels so far from who you actually are. The perfect student. The sorted one. The kid who “always knows what they’re doing.”  If only they knew I don’t even know what I’m eating for lunch half the time. And honestly, no one chooses to be a topper. It just happens. One good score, then another, then suddenly you’re trapped in this role you didn’t audition for. Expectations rise faster than the syllabus , and suddenly you’re supposed to be this textbook of stability and perfection. Teachers expect calm, parents expect consistency, classmates expect solutions, and relatives expect miracle...

I don’t think there was a single day where it all changed. no big explosion, no epiphany that made the sky split open. just this slow, sneaky calm that started crawling back in. like one morning i woke up and my chest didn’t feel like a battlefield anymore. the noise was still there, but it wasn’t in me anymore. and that’s how i knew something had moved. idk… i think i just got tired of being at war with myself. tired of trying to fix everything. so i stopped. and somehow, that’s when things started fixing themselves. now i talk easier. i laugh without checking if it sounds okay. sometimes i catch my reflection and don’t flinch. maybe that’s growth—or maybe it’s just peace in disguise. and i know it sounds dramatic but this feels like finally exhaling after holding my breath for years. like life didn’t suddenly become perfect, but it stopped hurting so much to live it. the lyric went ...  you’re the cause of my euphoria ,” i used to think they meant someone else....