i don’t remember when it started
only that it feels older than me
like it was stitched into the lining
of my childhood jacket
something I carried before I had words for it
they say “you get used to it”
and I did
I got used to the heaviness
to the way mornings felt like swimming through glue
to smiling in photographs
with something hollow behind my ribs
you get used to it
but it never goes away
it just changes shape
when I was little
I used to wish
oh, how ignorance was bliss
that one day, I’d be happier than this
I thought happiness was a destination
a city I’d grow into
where the air would be lighter
and my chest wouldn’t feel so tight
I used to feel
like all my fantasies were real
like someday I’d wake up
and everything would finally make sense
but now my dreams have lost all their appeal
they feel fragile
like glass I’m too tired to keep polishing
somewhere along the way
the sadness stopped screaming
and started whispering
then it stopped whispering
and became silence
numb is quieter
numb is easier
numb doesn’t ask for much
I’m comfortable
I’m okay, I’m not that miserable
I’m somewhere in the middle of it all
not drowning
not breathing easy either
just floating
face up
staring at a sky I don’t fully trust
as crazy as it is, I admit
I’m afraid of getting better
I’m afraid it gets too good
’cause it can’t last forever
even though I wish it could
because I’ve learned this rule too well
the higher you rise, the further that you fall
and soon, you’re left with nothin’ at all
so I keep myself low
manageable
small
I honestly just don’t wanna spend my energy
fixin’ all these broken things
what if I build something beautiful
and it collapses again
what if I let myself feel everything
and it hurts worse than before
if I, I get through this
I’ll never be the same
and maybe that’s what scares me most
because this sadness
as heavy as it is
is familiar
it has been with me
since playground days
since lying awake at eight years old
wondering why I felt older than everyone else
I don’t know who I am without it
they say you get used to it
and I have
but sometimes
late at night
when the numbness cracks just a little
I still wonder
what it would be like
to rise
without bracing
for the fall.
Feb 22
Feb 22, 2026 at 7:41 PM UTC
There is a place your mind goes
where everything hardens.
Where a moment decides it is permanent
and your chest believes it.
This is it.
This is all I will ever feel.
This is the temperature of my life now.
Sometimes it happens in the dark.
The kind that presses against your ribs
until breathing feels borrowed.
You think nothing will ever change.
Not tomorrow.
Not in a year.
Not in ten.
But it also happens in the light.
When you’re laughing too loud
or the air feels warm
and you tell yourself
this is it,
I’ve made it,
I will be happy forever.
The mind loves forever.
It clings to it.
It fears it.
It invents it.
We are dramatic like that.
We turn moments into life sentences.
And when it’s dark,
people say the usual things.
Be patient.
Give it time.
Time heals.
Old words.
Worn thin from repetition.
And maybe they’re true.
Maybe time does move things.
Softens edges.
Shifts the weight.
But when you’re inside the feeling
time feels slow.
Cruel, even.
Like it’s watching you struggle
just to prove a point.
You don’t feel healing.
You feel stuck.
Stuck in a version of yourself
you didn’t choose.
Maybe time is special.
Maybe it carries everything forward
whether we want it to or not.
But in that strange, suspended place
where forever feels real,
all you know is this moment.
And this moment
feels endless.
Feb 19
Feb 19, 2026 at 10:45 AM UTC
Don’t be that way.
I say it to myself in the mirror,
softly,
like I’m handling something already cracked.
I fall apart twice a day,
not dramatically,
just enough to notice.
Just enough to keep going.
I wish I could feel what I say
before I say it,
because my words always land
after the damage is done.
I call it honesty.
It’s really just harm with better grammar.
Show, never tell.
So I show it.
In the way my shoulders sink.
In the way I stop expecting things.
I know myself too well.
I know which moods will pass
and which ones move in.
If tears could be bottled,
mine wouldn’t be glamorous.
No pools.
No models.
Just small, sealed containers
hidden in drawers
no one ever opens.
I learned early
that something about me is always wrong.
If it’s not my clothes,
it’s my body.
If it’s not my body,
it’s my silence.
If it’s not my silence,
it’s the fact that I noticed.
If “I love you” were a promise,
I don’t know if I’d keep it.
Not because I don’t mean it,
but because I disappear
when things start to matter.
I tell the mirror what she already knows:
I leave myself
every time it hurts.
I don’t want to be you anymore.
I don’t want to wake up
already tired of being alive.
My hands are cold.
They always are.
Like they’ve been holding something too long
and forgot what warmth feels like.
Losing feeling isn’t scary anymore.
It’s familiar.
It’s quiet.
Was I made from a broken mold,
or did I just learn
how to break gently,
without making a sound?
I’m hurt in ways I can’t explain.
I’ve made every mistake,
and I carry them
like proof that this is what I deserve.
Only I know
exactly how I fall apart—
which thought to follow,
which memory to touch,
which sentence to repeat
until it starts to feel true.
If tears could be bottled,
I wouldn’t sell them.
I’d line them up on the floor
and sit there,
counting all the times
I survived
without ever feeling okay.
So I look at myself and say nothing.
Because sometimes silence
is the only thing honest enough.
I don’t want to be you.
Not like this.
I don’t want to be you.
I don’t want to be you
anymore.
Jan 31
Jan 31, 2026 at 4:52 PM UTC
I don’t think people understand what it means to lose the person who taught you how to breathe. Not in a poetic way. In a literal, body-memory way. You were the first rhythm my chest learned. In. Out. Safe. And when you died, my body kept going but the instructions disappeared.
I never really processed it. Not because I didn’t feel it, but because I learned fast that grief is something you keep under control. You say it’s “not that bad.” You say it often enough that people stop asking. Pretending didn’t make it lighter. It just buried it deeper, where it could rot quietly.
I was a kid and somehow it became my job to hold everyone together. I stood there watching adults fall apart and acted like it made sense. Like I wasn’t the one who lost the ground under their feet. I learned to be useful instead of honest. Strong instead of allowed to break. I carried people with hands that were never meant to carry anything that heavy.
I never put that weight down.
Now I feel responsible for everyone being okay, all the time. If someone isn’t, my chest tightens like I failed an invisible test. I don’t let myself want things anymore because wanting feels selfish. Everything good feels temporary, borrowed, like it could be taken away the second I relax.
Talking about how I feel makes me feel guilty. Like I’m taking up space I didn’t earn. Like my pain is an inconvenience. Like I should be quieter, more grateful, more over it by now.
But the night never listens.
I still see you. Your body. Too still. Wrong in a way my brain can’t correct. That image comes back every night, sharp and exact, like my mind refuses to let it fade. It doesn’t knock. It just appears. Over and over. Proof that it happened.
People say memories soften. This one doesn’t. It waits.
Sometimes I think part of me stopped breathing when you did. The rest of me has just been doing it manually ever since. Counting air. Forcing it in and out. Functioning. Calling it living because I don’t know what else to call survival.
I didn’t lose you once.
I lose you every night.
And every morning I wake up and pretend I didn’t.
Jan 26
Jan 26, 2026 at 7:54 PM UTC
There are three of us.
But only two are ever really seen.
My sister—the golden one,
My brother—the untouchable.
And me…
somewhere in between
love and disappointment.
I think my mom loves me.
I think.
But she doesn’t like me.
Not really.
She says things like
“Did I punish you after you wanted to jump off that bridge?”
and calls it kindness.
Calls it grace.
As if not screaming at a suicidal daughter
deserves applause.
She uses my pain like a weapon.
Waves my scars in my face
when I try to speak up.
“Why are you so dramatic?”
“Why are you never happy?”
“I gave you everything.”
No, mom.
You gave me silence.
Guilt.
Tears I learned to hide in pillows.
You gave me the kind of love
that only hurts.
My brother breaks something—
he gets a hug.
I breathe wrong—
and I get told
I ruin everything.
I flinch when people raise their voice.
I shake in bakeries.
I can’t even say “one roll, please”
without my hands trembling.
Because what if they laugh?
What if I say it wrong?
What if I’m too much again?
I’m tired.
Not like sleepy.
Like… my soul wants to leave.
Like my body is here
but the rest of me
checked out years ago.
I cut because I need to feel
something that makes sense.
Because at least pain on my skin
is something I can control.
But her words?
Her words stay longer.
Her words dig deeper.
I know I need help.
But how do you ask for air
when everyone else is already breathing?
Sometimes I wonder
what it would take for someone to really see me.
Not the grades.
Not the breakdowns.
Not the cuts.
Me.
I’m the middle child.
But maybe I was just
the space between
people who matter.
Oct 29, 2025
Oct 29, 2025 at 4:44 PM UTC
You put on your clothes and kiss me soft,
like we’ve done this a thousand times before—
a little whiskey on your breath,
a little death in your eyes.
You stare through the glass at the city,
and when the lights flicker on,
it looks almost holy.
We fell in love too fast,
like cars on wet asphalt.
Something about us just clicked—
like a gun before it fires.
Maybe we’re sick,
sick in the heart,
but it’s the kind of sick that makes
every bruise look like art.
You read me that poem you wrote—
voice shaking, cigarette smoke
curling between every word.
It gave me hope,
it made me choke,
like love trying to breathe underwater.
Your hands cradle my face,
and I trace the scars on your arms
like I’m reading a map
to the parts of you I’ll never reach.
Don’t let me go,
I whisper.
I won’t let you go,
you lie.
Later, you’re lying on the bed,
filming yourself crying,
and I swear the world slows down—
like the camera can feel your heart breaking.
You ask if I ever dream of flying,
like the wind and the dying leaves—
and baby, I do.
I dream of anything that isn’t this.
We grew up too quick,
destroying the world with a click,
killing innocence through the screen light.
You smile down at your phone
like it’s the only thing that ever listened.
Outside, the city fills with smoke.
You joke—
“If I jumped, do you think I’d float?”
And I laugh,
because if I cry, I’ll drown.
Now the forest is burning,
the sky’s too red to mean morning,
and the TV won’t stop talking.
They’re taking your body away,
and the air smells like the last time
you said my name.
I stand at the window,
nails painted, heart undone,
and whisper to no one—
don’t let me go.
I won’t let you go.
Oct 29, 2025
Oct 29, 2025 at 4:37 PM UTC
I was twelve when the world collapsed—
not loud. No explosion.
Just a silence so thick
it wrapped around my lungs
and stayed there.
They said, “He’s gone.”
Like it was a story ending.
But I was still in the room—
staring at him,
staring at death
in a body I still wanted to hug.
His chest didn’t rise.
His hands were cold.
The room was too bright,
and I couldn’t find my own breath.
My knees hit the floor.
Hard.
I didn’t even feel it.
Since then,
my body became a graveyard.
I carry him in every joint.
I carry him in every bruise
I gave myself in the dark
just to scream without noise.
Some nights,
my chest locks like his did.
Some nights,
I press my fingernails into my skin
just to feel anything other than this ache.
Pain became prayer.
Blood became language.
And the flashbacks—
they’re not just in my mind.
They live in my spine,
my throat,
my hands that shake
when I walk past a hospital,
or see an old man sleep.
I still see him.
In that bed.
Eyes closed,
like he was pretending.
But he wasn’t pretending.
He left.
And took the light with him.
Grandma found me once,
curled in the bathroom,
wrapped around a razor
like it was a lifeline.
She didn’t flinch.
She just sat,
and let the silence breathe.
Then, through her cracked voice, she said:
“When my grandfather died,
the world stopped making sense.
He raised me. He loved me.
And when they buried him,
they buried the only place I ever felt like I mattered.”
“You think this is new?” she whispered.
“Pain’s been passed down
like an heirloom none of us asked for.”
I didn’t speak.
Just shook,
and bled quietly
into the towel I didn’t mean to grab.
Because I know too much now.
I know what grief tastes like—
metallic and sharp.
I know what trauma feels like—
tight skin, locked jaw,
a pulse that races for no reason.
I know how silence can scream.
I know how mirrors can lie.
I know what it’s like
to want to leave
just to stop reliving.
Colors don’t sing anymore.
They hum like warning signs.
But the blue…
The blue still bleeds.
It stains everything he touched.
And I can’t wash it off.
So I whisper at night:
Please.
Stay a little longer.
Let me fall asleep
without the sound of a flatline
echoing in my skull.
Let me be twelve again—
before my arms became maps of pain.
Before I forgot what warmth felt like
that didn’t come from bandages.
I wish I could see the world through those eyes—
the ones that looked at him and saw forever.
But forever lied.
And now I know too much.
Still…
the blue hasn’t faded.
It bleeds,
but it hasn’t gone.
And I wish.
I still wish.
Jul 18, 2025
Jul 18, 2025 at 8:50 PM UTC
First to arrive at the funeral of warmth,
Last to leave the echo of breath.
What is misery without a mirror?
What is a laugh when lungs collapse?
It’s white outside,
but red claws bloom beneath the snow.
My nose burns with the frostbite’s kiss —
a fire disguised as silence.
I’ll crawl through winter’s teeth
even if the season swallows me whole.
I could meet the end more quickly
if I let go of the brakes.
I carve angels in the snow —
arms spread like surrender —
until I feel holy,
or at least no longer haunted.
If it kills me, I’ll call it trying.
If it kills me…
Smiles are coffins
where secrets rot sweet.
No one lies if no one speaks —
a silence sharp enough to bleed.
The girl in the mirror wears my skin,
but her pulse is paper-thin,
her eyes a grave of me.
I’ll make it through the winter
if the cold doesn’t get curious.
I could fall faster
if I weren’t always catching my own blade.
Still, I shape wings in the ash of snow
hoping to be forgiven
for waking up.
I tried so hard
to stitch the cracks.
I got so far
from myself.
There was a girl —
a wound that walked like love.
I blamed her ghost,
because ghosts are easier than guilt.
But I still search
for her in the warmth of another —
hoping to find the flame
that didn’t burn me.
The seasons change —
grief just shapeshifts.
What fed me then
poisons me now.
I once drank joy from a chalice of ruin,
and called it love.
If I could go back,
I’d still choose the blade that fit my hand.
I’ll make it through the winter, maybe —
but why does time crawl
when you want it to run?
I’ll keep sculpting angels from frost
until the sky thinks I’m enough.
If it kills me,
at least I was reaching.
If it kills me…
I tried.
Jul 18, 2025
Jul 18, 2025 at 8:47 PM UTC
She’s the middle daughter, full of rage, full of anger.
Full of thoughts no one ever gets to hear, full of thoughts which overwhelm her.
She’s the middle daughter, never the best, always enough to be thrown away to the side.
the one that's always treated unfairly, she overthinks everything far too much, but it is always suppressed within her, her anger, her hatred, her thoughts, her pain, it is all suppressed and caged within her because she fears of being an even bigger burden than she already is on the people around her.
no one ever seems to notice the middle daughter or the pain and suffering she hides and carries all by herself, but it’s definitely there.
It’s not easy to hide the pain, especially not when it starts to get visible on the outside.
Apr 13, 2025
Apr 13, 2025 at 3:33 PM UTC
⸻
Even the thought of talking makes me feel anxious.
The looks I get, the thoughts of people—I can almost hear them. People laugh about things that, to me, are nightmares. I’m standing in the bakery. Three more people, then it’s my turn. My hands are shaking. My thoughts are spinning so fast I feel like I might pass out. It’s my turn, and all I can do is look at my mom like a little kid, silently begging her to order for me.
I’m sitting in class.
The teacher asks a question, and I know the answer. I should raise my hand—of course I should. I know it. But I don’t.
What if I’m wrong and everyone thinks I’m stupid?
What if they all look at me?
I can already feel the eyes, hear the laughter. I used to laugh too… isn’t laughter something good? No. Not like this. It’s the worst thing that could happen.
My leg starts shaking. My hands are damp. I struggle to breathe. I start fidgeting with my sleeve.
And suddenly… the teacher picks someone else. I missed my chance. Again.
Why can’t I just speak?
It’s not like something bad would really happen. Everyone else talks. Why can’t I? Why is everything so **** embarrassing?
I know I need help—desperately. And even when I had help, I couldn’t use it the way I should’ve. Now it’s gone, and I can’t bring myself to ask for it again. Even if I did, I don’t know if I’d be able to use it right this time.
When does this hellish cycle end?
When will it stop being so humiliating to do simple things—like drinking in public?
When can I finally start living instead of surviving?
No one understands how exhausting it is when everything feels so embarrassing that you lose all your confidence… or worse, can’t even try at all.
Apr 10, 2025
Apr 10, 2025 at 12:15 PM UTC