for when you stopped feeling much of anything

Numb is not the absence of feeling. It is what feeling too much for too long looks like from the inside.

You went quiet because something got too loud. That is not emptiness. That is protection.

The numbness kept you functional. That was useful. But functional and okay are different things, and somewhere along the way you stopped checking which one you were.

At some point the protection becomes the prison. You are close to that line, and some part of you already knows it.

Emptiness is sometimes the space the old version of you left before the new one arrived. It is not comfortable. It is not permanent.

There is still something in you looking for a way out of this feeling. That searching is life.