The year I chose to live,  
because on that one day, I didn’t die.  
My breath lingered, though I wished it would halt,  
and my heart kept beating,  
even as it shattered into shards too sharp to hold.  

I learned the weight of living  
when you no longer wish to carry it.  
When each step feels heavier than the last,  
and your place in this world  
is a question you’re too tired to answer.  
But I also discovered  
the fragile beauty of life –  
how sacred each breath becomes  
when it burns against the walls of your chest.  

Since the day I didn’t leave,  
I have loved life fiercely,  
with a hunger I never knew I had.  

I walked through a love  
that strangled me like a noose,  
a love that erased and froze me,  
that burned without offering warmth,  
that stole my air and left me gasping.  
A love so beautiful,  
it broke me.  
A love so painful,  
it almost ended me.  

I tried to breathe.  
I tried to live.  
But loneliness was a sea of shadows,  
wrapping itself around my ankles,  
pulling me into a quiet that screamed.  

I couldn’t bear it.  
My mind whispered, "You won’t last."  
Ten minutes alone stretched into an eternity,  
a silence that devoured me whole.  

And yet, I rose –  
gathering the fragments of myself,  
though their edges tore my hands.  
In the ashes, I searched for beauty,  
and found glimmers of light.  

No matter who hurt me.  
No matter whose hands left bruises on my soul.  
I fought.  
I survived.  

In shadows and ruins,  
I searched for the pieces of myself.  
I found fragments hidden like relics –  
pieces I had forgotten,  
or never knew existed.  

I chased the light,  
a fragile butterfly fleeing the claws of shadows.  
In the quiet of empty places,  
I stood face-to-face with myself.  
And that was the hardest thing of all.  

I sought solace in abandoned places –  
crumbling walls and shattered windows,  
a mirror to the desolation inside me.  
And yet,  
I felt at home there.  

I tried everything:  
a job, a dream,  
a van to carry me far from here.  
Freedom felt like a whisper  
I could never catch.  

I poured my last strength  
into painting Easter eggs,  
letting a child’s laughter echo through the silence.  
For her,  
I stood strong,  
even as I shattered inside.  

I wanted to love,  
but in my giving,  
I lost myself.  

I left flowers by the roadside,  
small offerings to a world  
I was trying to believe in.  
Even as my heart bled,  
even as hope flickered faintly.  

I stretched for the sun,  
but found only faint stars –  
cold and distant,  
yet they whispered:  
“In the depths of darkness,  
light survives.”  

Step by trembling step,  
I walked the ruins of my past,  
where shadows of my younger self  
lay buried beneath the rubble of time.  
Each shard I lifted  
felt like a whisper:  
"Keep going. I am still here."  

And then it came –  
a shot through the fragile shell of my heart,  
shattering the silence within me,  
echoing through the hollow caverns of my soul.  

I needed help –  
not just to breathe,  
but to find the fragments of myself  
that the darkness had stolen.  

And so my healing began,  
trembling hands gripping a glass of water,  
while words etched in black and white  
tried to stitch me back together.  

There was structure,  
there was a plan:  
words, faces,  
people who carried the same weight I did.  
Slowly, I learned:  
I am enough.  
Slowly, I began to believe  
that broken things can be made whole.  

For the first time, sweetness touched my tongue –  
ice melting into rivers of warmth,  
flowing through the frozen landscapes of my soul.  
For the first time, colors returned to my mind.  
I gathered my broken pieces,  
and in the mirror,  
my eyes held life again.  

My wounds faded to scars.  
I wanted to live.  
I began carving hope into the walls of my mind –  
each word a quiet rebellion,  
each line a flicker of light  
breaking through the shadows.  
Slowly, belief returned,  
like a hesitant sunrise after the longest night.  

And then I smiled –  
a real smile,  
one that reached my eyes.  

There were still shadows,  
still losses that burned.  
But I was no longer powerless.  

I found someone,  
someone who held my heart  
when it was ready to break.  
With her, I laughed in defiance of sorrow.  
With her, I aimed at my demons,  
watched them crumble into dust.  

I began to see love  
in places I had never looked.  
Even in a withered leaf,  
its tattered edges shaped like a heart.  

Now, when I walk,  
my thoughts drift lighter,  
carried by the light.  

I write of my pain.  
I sing of my sorrow.  
So others may know:  
You are not alone.  

This year,  
I searched for myself.  
And I found pieces I never thought I would.  

I stayed,  
because my heart still beats.  
And as long as it beats,  
I will rise.  
I will stay.  
For I am not only strong –  
I am the unbroken,  
the unyielding.  
I am the light that refuses to dim.

I walk through streets I know too well,
toward work, toward class, toward the corner store.
The streets swell with bodies,
yet each step echoes hollow.
I am surrounded,
yet invisible –
a shadow in a sea of faces.
I see the same people, day after day –
at work, in class, in the aisles of the store.
Eyes that whisper softly,
"I can’t.
I can’t go on."
Brown, green, blue –
a kaleidoscope of color,
but when I look deeper,
I see the emptiness,
a void they try to hide.
And yet, beneath the emptiness lies life.
Fragments of truth glimmer –
a whisper of color,
the shadow of a wound,
the faint echo of a heart still beating.
Faces blur into sameness,
contours erased by powders and paints,
bronzer sculpting cheekbones,
lips drawn into perfect, silent shapes.
Each mask a fortress,
polished to protect the fragile soul
hidden beneath.
Oops.
I bump into the woman at the candy stall,
buying sweets to steady my nerves.
She looks just like the lady
who held the door for me 350 kilometers away.
Why does everyone wear the same mask now,
painted in shades of sameness,
hiding the vibrant chaos beneath?
We were all stars once,
radiant constellations,
but now we trade our light for artificial gleam,
buying beauty, sculpting bodies,
fleeing authenticity
as if it were a flame too bright to bear.
Tell me – when did we begin
to fear our own reflection?
When did the truth of who we are
become something to conceal?
Let your mask crumble.
Let it fall like autumn leaves,
revealing the branches of who you are.
Have you ever wondered –
if you showed the world
the raw, unpolished beauty of your scars,
would the world not offer you its own?

I hope that, when you forget everything,
the years settle softly on your skin,
like the quiet fall of autumn leaves,
like whispers of time that cradle you in their arms.
I hope you find peace in the stillness,
where the summer wind brushes against your face,
its touch an echo of the days we held dear—
days that felt eternal,
woven with warmth and light.
I hope the sea’s salt-kissed breeze
finds you again,
its touch a fleeting memory
of endless horizons
and laughter rising into the sky.
And when the silence wraps itself around you,
may the waves of our youth rise softly,
carrying whispers of everything we were,
of everything we loved.
I hope the scent of vanilla carries you
to the quiet corners of our laughter,
where time stood still,
and the world outside seemed
as distant as the stars.
Even if the melodies fade,
may the songs that once bound us together
linger in your soul—
not as fading echoes,
but as eternal whispers of a love
too deep to forget.
Even if your steps grow slower,
even if the years weigh heavy on your shoulders,
I hope the rhythm of our memories remains—
steady as the tide,
unbroken as the stars.
And when the world grows still,
may you feel me there—
not as a name you’ve forgotten,
but as a warmth
woven into the fabric of your soul.
Even if you cannot remember
the roads we walked,
the moments that shaped us,
will you still feel the echo of my love
in the quiet corners of your heart?
And when the years grow colder,
may you never forget this:
you were held by my love.
It carried you through the storms,
through every shadow and silence,
and it remains,
undimmed,
unchanged.
And when you forget everything,
I hope my smile lingers on your lips.
I hope my voice, soft as a breath,
still reaches your heart—
a quiet "I love you,"
a truth that refuses to fade.
Even if my memories turn to dust,
even if my name falls silent on your lips,
one truth will remain:
my love, vast as the ocean,
timeless as the stars,
will forever be yours.

I would rather hold half of you
than lose the rest.
Half your words,
half your touch,
is better than silence,
better than the void
that threatens to consume me whole.
I would rather stumble blind into sharp edges,
press my hands to the wounds,
and call it love,
than face a world
where your shadow no longer lingers.
I would find you
in the center of my breaking,
in the pulse of my pain,
and though it shatters me,
I would stay still.
Take half of me,
and I will give you everything—
even the parts that ache.
Trace the crimson rivers
that spill quietly from my heart,
love bleeding out slowly,
but willingly.
I drift into the mirage of you,
collapsing into the hollow spaces
where you once stood.
Half is all you give.
Half is all I take.
Half is all I need—
because it’s still you.
Leave me in the quiet corners,
where I crumble like autumn leaves,
waiting for the wind of your presence
to gather me again.
And when you return,
give me half.
Half a glance,
half a moment,
just enough to remind me
that I still exist
in the orbit of your world.
Hold me—not the way I need,
but just enough
to make me forget
how little of you I truly have.
Half of you feels like drowning,
and yet, without it,
I cannot breathe.
Half a word,
half a touch,
and I take it silently.
Because even half a pain
that belongs to you
feels like everything
I was meant to endure.
Your absence is a shadow,
stretching across my days,
but even shadows are proof
that light once touched me.
And I hold on to that light,
even when it burns.
I wait for the day
when your half becomes whole,
when you see the pieces of me
scattered at your feet
and choose to pick them up.
Even broken, even halved,
you are the only truth I have ever known.
The only ache
I would choose again,
and again,
and again.
Even if it means losing myself
in the spaces you leave behind.

You are more than nerves,
more than trembling hands—
you are a storm within my chest,
a tidal wave breaking the fragile walls of my heart,
pulling me under,
then pushing me back to breathe,
only to drown me again.
You, my fear,
are always a step ahead.
No matter how fast I run,
you are there—
fixed like a shadow,
unyielding.
I hate you,
hate the way you twist my thoughts,
how you sharpen them against me,
but you are all I’ve ever known.
You are the deepest cut,
the sharpest truth,
and yet,
the only part of me that feels alive.
At four a.m.,
you rise like a phantom in the dark,
lighting fires in the corners of my mind.
Your voice, louder than silence,
burns through my chest.
I come home,
tear-streaked and hollow,
but there you are,
waiting.
Always waiting.
You are the fog that settles in my mind,
thick and unyielding,
blurring the edges of my sanity.
You are the weight I carry,
the anchor that drags me down—
but without you,
I drift,
lost in a hollow void.
You are the tide that pulls me under,
the shadow that stretches across my days,
the ache I despise,
and yet,
the only part of me
I truly understand.
What am I,
if not the sum of my fears?
And if you leave,
who will I become without you?
You are my shadow,
the darkness I flee,
and yet,
the anchor that keeps me from floating away.
You are the storm I curse,
and the only home
I’ve ever known.

Who do I turn to  
when the world is wrapped in shadow,  
when the silence within me  
swells into a storm I can’t contain?  
The darkness stretches endlessly,  
a hollow chasm so deep  
that even those who glimpse its edge  
step back,  
afraid to fall,  
afraid they’ll never climb back out.  

What do I do  
when I offer my hand,  
aching for connection,  
only to feel it left untouched?  
Not out of cruelty,  
but fear—  
fear that holding me  
might pull them under too.  
What do I do  
when pain feels like the only constant,  
its embrace familiar,  
its weight suffocating—  
yet safe?  

I tell myself,  
“It’s not the worst it’s been.  
I know these shadows.  
I know how to exist  
in this quiet absence of light.”  
The darkness, for all its heaviness,  
is steady.  
But the sun—  
the sun blinds me with its demands,  
its brightness asks for a joy  
I no longer have.  
It wants a version of me  
that I left behind long ago.  

So I swallow my words,  
tuck them deep where no one can see.  
Who would want to hear them?  
Who could stand the weight of them?  
Negative thoughts cling like smoke,  
choking the air between us,  
so I stay quiet,  
choosing the solitude of silence  
over the risk of being too much.  

I know I could come to you.  
But how much could I truly share  
before you see where I stand—  
before you realize the depth of my shadows,  
and step back like the rest?  

Maybe it’s better this way.  
To lock the cracks inside,  
to hold my brokenness close,  
so it doesn’t seep into your light.  
You don’t see me cry,  
but you don’t see me dance either.  
And I wonder—  
if I let you in,  
if I unraveled the truth of my pain,  
would you listen?  
Or would you leave?  

Would my shadows smother the light you see in me?  
Would you forget the laughter,  
the joy I once carried,  
and see only the storm  
that lingers now?  
What version of me lives in your mind?  
The one who danced freely,  
or the one who crumbles beneath the weight of silence?  

If I speak my pain,  
will it become yours too?  
Maybe it’s selfish to burden you.  
Maybe it’s better to carry it alone,  
to bury it deep where no one can find it.  
Maybe I can protect you  
from the darkness that calls me home.  

But even as I shield you from my rain,  
even as I let your sun shine unbroken,  
I feel myself fading.  
The edges of who I am  
grow thin and blurred,  
a quiet erosion of everything I used to be.  

What good is it to stay silent,  
to keep you near,  
if I lose myself in the process?  
What good is it to save you from my storm,  
if I drown in the flood alone?

Would you love me more  
if I dissolved into the air,  
a fleeting whisper,  
soft as the breath of the wind,  
asking for nothing,  
tied to no shape, no weight?  
If I shed this fragile body,  
this skin heavy with imperfections,  
would I finally be enough?  

Would you cherish me  
if I let go of my flaws,  
if I became the shimmer of dew  
on trembling leaves at dawn,  
or the sunbeam warming your cheek?  
If I were the rhythm of rain,  
gentle and fleeting,  
touching the earth without leaving a mark—  
would I seem lighter,  
easier to hold in your hands?  

If I quieted the chaos,  
smoothed the edges of my emotions,  
became something softer,  
would you find it easier to love me?  
Would you reach for me  
if I were a butterfly,  
fragile and beautiful,  
a fleeting life you could only hold for a moment?  
Would my fragility make me precious,  
or would you let me drift away  
as easily as I arrived?  

If I were the roots beneath your feet,  
the steady tree you lean on,  
would my stillness be enough for you?  
Would you water my silence,  
tend to my devotion,  
or would you forget me,  
unchanging,  
until I was gone?  

Would you breathe me in  
if I became the air,  
invisible but essential,  
filling your lungs without asking for space?  
Would you crave me more  
if I were the breeze—  
light and fleeting,  
never too much,  
never too deep?  
Or is it my depth that frightens you,  
the vast ocean inside me,  
its waves crashing against your walls,  
seeking to be known?  

Would you love me more  
if I unraveled the threads of my humanity—  
the rawness,  
the mess,  
the longing you can’t seem to hold?  
If I became less real,  
less flawed,  
less alive,  
would I finally be what you want me to be?  

If I gave up everything  
that makes me who I am,  
would I fit into your world?  
Or would I slip through your hands,  
a ghost of what I once was,  
still never enough  
for the love I hoped to find?  

Tell me—  
if I were less,  
would you love me more?  
Or would I vanish  
before you ever truly saw  
who I am?

Maybe it’s easier to embrace emptiness,  
to let loneliness hold me,  
than to keep asking why I’m never enough.  
Not too much, not too little—  
I just want to exist,  
wholly and unapologetically as myself.  
But even that feels like too much to ask.  

I don’t want to speak of broken hearts,  
of dreams abandoned in the dark.  
I don’t want to bend beneath the weight  
of your expectations,  
constantly reshaping,  
becoming something I’m not.  

The fear of being hurt again  
gnaws at me like a relentless tide,  
wearing me down,  
until I’m hollow,  
a ghost of who I used to be.  
I drown myself in another drink,  
hoping to blur the ache,  
but all I see is the fractured reflection  
of a person I barely recognize.  

I don’t want to be a placeholder,  
something you keep close  
until you find what you’re really looking for.  
I don’t want to linger in the shadows,  
waiting for love that never comes.  
I don’t want to be forgotten,  
reduced to a fleeting memory,  
like I was never more than a passing thought.  

I don’t want to carry the impossible weight  
of perfection,  
to mold myself into an image  
that feels like a stranger.  
I don’t want a love built on uncertainty,  
a fragile dance where every step  
feels like falling through glass.  

I don’t want to compete  
with the ghosts of your past—  
the faces you admire,  
the laughter you share with others,  
the moments you give so freely  
to everyone but me.  
I don’t want to stand in the background,  
always reaching,  
always falling short.  

I don’t want to be your experiment,  
a fleeting curiosity.  
I don’t want to shrink myself  
to fit the narrow spaces  
where you’re comfortable.  
I don’t want to hold back  
out of fear that being real  
will be too much for you to bear.  

I don’t want to sit across from you,  
watching your gaze drift,  
your thoughts wander to places  
I can’t follow.  
I don’t want to beg for your attention,  
your touch,  
your care,  
when it’s your absence that wounds me most.  

I don’t want to believe  
that my love is a burden.  
I don’t want to see myself  
through the filter of your indifference.  
I don’t want to keep breaking,  
changing,  
rebuilding myself  
to fit a shape  
that was never meant for me.  

I want to be more than a convenience,  
more than an afterthought.  
I want to stop living in fear—  
fear that one day you’ll leave  
without a word,  
without a glance back.  

I want to be seen,  
not just for the pieces I show,  
but for the storms and softness  
I keep hidden.  
I want you to see my chaos,  
my flaws,  
my scars,  
and still stay.  

I want to be loved  
not for what I give,  
but for who I am—  
messy, imperfect, real.  
I want a love  
that doesn’t make me question  
my worth.  
A love that doesn’t leave me  
feeling like I have to disappear  
just to make space.  

I want to stop aching for a love  
that asks me to be less,  
and start believing  
I’ve always been enough.  

I want to find in your eyes  
what I’ve lost in myself—  
the good,  
the worthy,  
the light I can’t always see.  

I want to feel held  
not because I’m flawless,  
but because I’m whole.  
I want a love  
that heals the broken pieces,  
that mends without asking me  
to tear myself apart.  
I want to stop fighting for space  
in a world that made me feel small,  
and finally know  
I am worthy,  
just as I am.

I am done bowing to the weight of their words,  
done letting voices carve me into shapes  
that never felt like home.  
Their shadows stretch long,  
but I will no longer live beneath them.  

I am not here to be quiet.  
I am not here to blend into the crowd,  
to walk paths smoothed by a thousand faceless feet.  
I am here to blaze,  
to stand where the world told me to kneel,  
to burn brighter than they dared to dream.  

The storms will come.  
They always do.  
I will stand in the rain until it baptizes me,  
let the winds shred my soul to its bones,  
and still, I will rise.  

The road will bleed me,  
etching its truth into my skin.  
But my wounds will bloom into gold,  
and I will rise, forged in their fire.  

It is not too late.  
Not too late to sift through my ashes,  
to find her—  
the me I buried beneath their voices,  
the one who never stopped waiting  
for this moment to be free.  

I will fall.  
I will break.  
I will rise.  
I will rise,  
until the ground beneath me quakes with my name,  
until I am fire,  
until I am free.  

I will not just exist.  
I will carve my name into the wind.  
I will live.  
I will *become.

I return to the keys,  
pouring my grief into the cracks of these words,  
as if they could hold the weight of the emptiness you left.  
But grief is relentless.  
It doesn’t ebb, doesn’t quiet—  
it rises, crashes,  
and drags me under,  
again and again.  

I fall into your arms—  
or maybe just the memory of them.  
It’s only a teddy bear now,  
soft where you were steady,  
still here where you are not.  
I hold it close,  
because it’s all that’s left of you—  
you, who once made the world feel safe.  

I wish I could fall in love again,  
with the way life moves,  
with the reflection in my mirror.  
But tell me,  
have you seen my laughter from where you are?  
Can you hear it echo through the years?  
Or does it hang like a ghost,  
faint and forgotten,  
lost in the space where you used to be?  
Mama, the days are heavy now.  
Not like before,  
when life fit so easily in my hands.  

I wrap my arms around myself,  
pretending they are yours,  
but the hollow you left stretches wider.  
Sometimes I shut my eyes,  
and in the darkness, you come back—  
your laughter,  
soft as sunlight,  
dancing across my skin,  
kissing the freckles you loved so much.  
We’re on the grass again,  
your hand brushing mine.  
But it’s not real, is it?  
It’s just the wind,  
and my tears fall harder,  
burning trails into my skin,  
carving rivers into my soul.  
They scar me, Mama.  
They etch your absence into every corner of my life.  

A butterfly rests on the windowsill,  
its wings stirring a quiet ache in me,  
a reminder of the tattoo I got for you—  
the one you never would have liked.  
But still, I whispered your name as the needle cut,  
as if it could bring you closer.  
Are you still here, Mama?  
Somewhere I cannot see?  
If you are,  
stand with me, just for a moment.  
Let me feel your love again—  
let me be your little girl once more.  
Let me scrape my knees and run to you,  
knowing you’ll always pick me up.  
Your hands so soft,  
your pockets ready  
with a pink Band-Aid for all the broken pieces of the world.  

Let’s paint again,  
just once more—  
a parrot, bold and bright,  
the freedom you never had.  
Embarrass me one last time,  
the way you always did.  
I promise I won’t roll my eyes.  
I’ll laugh with you this time,  
I’ll savor the sound of your voice,  
the one I took for granted  
until it was gone.  

What I wouldn’t give for one of those sixth-day meals,  
when there was nothing left  
but your smile at the table,  
making scraps feel like a feast.  
Now I sit here,  
pretending you’re leaning over my shoulder,  
your voice soft in my ear:  
“Write, my little one.”  
You always said that.  
In the kitchen, your blonde hair pinned up,  
your heart heavy with a love  
you didn’t want to carry—  
but carried anyway,  
for me.  

What a beautiful, broken lie life was, wasn’t it, Mama?  
You took your secrets with you,  
but I stayed to watch the truth:  
you left because I let you go.  
I gave you permission,  
even as it shattered me,  
even as my tears begged you to stay.  

Just once more, Mama.  
Let me be your little girl again.  
Let me hear your laugh,  
feel your arms,  
listen to your endless, annoying advice.  
Let me feel your love  
filling the empty spaces inside me.  

Just once.  
Just once more.  
And maybe then—  
maybe—I could learn to let go.

Step into the silence of your thoughts.  
Feel their weight, their pull, their truth.  
Ask yourself the questions  
you’ve been too afraid to face:  
Who am I beneath the layers they gave me?  
Who would I be if their voices fell away?  

Your thoughts are the compass of your world.  
But if others hold the map,  
where will you go?  
They plant beliefs in you,  
wrap them in certainty,  
and you take them,  
never asking if they fit the shape of your soul.  

Stop.  
Breathe.  
Feel the burden of what you carry.  
Do these thoughts belong to you,  
or were they pressed into your hands?  
Do they lift you,  
or do they hold you still?  
Do you even know where they end,  
and you begin?  

The world will try to own you.  
It will whisper in your ear,  
shape you into something softer, smaller—  
something easier to control.  
But you are not theirs to tame.  
You are the tide,  
rising and crashing,  
breaking every shore  
that dared to hold you back.  

Let your thoughts rebel.  
Tear down the walls  
built by hands that never loved you.  
Not every belief belongs to you.  
Not every truth deserves your trust.  
Ask yourself:  
What thought sets you free?  
What thought chains you down?  

When the weight feels unbearable,  
when the voices in your mind press too hard,  
pause and ask:  
Is this truly mine?  
Does this thought serve my soul,  
or does it bind it?  
You are the keeper of your mind.  
You decide what stays,  
what goes,  
what grows.  

You are not a mirror for their truths.  
You are not their echo.  
You are a creator.  
Break every pattern they placed in you.  
Reclaim the space to dream,  
to rise,  
to rewrite.  

With every thought you choose,  
you build the world you will live in.  
So think fiercely.  
Question boldly.  
And carve a life so wholly yours  
that no one will ever take it away again.

“I don’t want to die,  
but I wouldn’t mind disappearing.”  
It’s not the end I long for,  
but the silence of something breaking—  
the stillness after the storm.  
There’s a shadow wrapped around my ribs,  
a weight that murmurs  
there’s no escape but unraveling.  

It’s not life I wish to leave behind,  
but the parts of me that feel too heavy to carry.  
The doubts that root me to the ground,  
the thoughts that keep replaying,  
until I forget who I was  
before the noise began.  

Sometimes, we crave a small death—  
not of the body,  
but of the self we’ve outgrown.  
The pieces of us that hold too tight,  
that shrink us to fit a life  
we no longer belong to.  

But maybe it’s not death I need.  
Maybe it’s a breaking open.  
A shedding of the old,  
a step beyond the walls I’ve built.  
Past the fear, past the doubt—  
to a place where life breathes lighter,  
where I can feel the weight of the sun  
instead of the weight of myself.  

Still, before I can begin again,  
I must stand still.  
I must face the quiet ache  
of what I’ve buried inside me.  
The pain, the questions, the glimmers of hope—  
they are mine to hold,  
and only by holding them  
can I begin to let them go.  

So I ask myself:  
Who do I want to be?  
And who would you be,  
if you let yourself begin again?  
What thoughts, what choices,  
could carry us closer to the lives we crave?  

I am learning to trust myself,  
to feel joy in the smallest cracks of light—  
the warmth of the sun breaking through clouds,  
the sound of laughter I almost forgot was mine.  
I hold onto gratitude,  
even when it feels fragile,  
and slowly, the darkness softens its grip.  

I step outside,  
leaving the noise behind,  
and feel the world exhale.  
I meet myself here—  
the fears I’ve avoided,  
the voice I’ve silenced.  
And maybe,  
just maybe,  
I don’t want to disappear anymore.  

I want to live.  
Not survive.  
Live.  
To let the waves crash over me,  
to rise again,  
and find that I have always been enough.

“I’m not enough,” I whisper to myself,  
as if the words could define me.  
My stomach is too soft,  
my nose too bold,  
my lips too thin to carry beauty,  
my arms too weak to hold worth.  

Every day, I face the mirror like an enemy,  
its surface heavy with unspoken rules:  
Be smaller. Be smoother. Be better.  
And I try.  
I try to mold myself into a vision  
that was never mine to begin with.  
But no matter how I bend,  
how I break,  
it’s never enough.  

What is "enough"?  
A mirage, a lie—  
a fleeting standard meant to keep us chasing.  
Who told you to measure yourself  
against something that doesn’t exist?  
Who taught you that beauty  
was a battle you had to win?  

Listen to me.  
Your body is not their canvas.  
It is not their project to critique.  
It is your home—  
built strong enough to carry your pain,  
your joy, your quiet triumphs.  

Your hands have held onto fragile threads of hope,  
even as the darkness tried to swallow them whole.  
Your legs have walked forward,  
even when the weight of the world  
threatened to pull you down.  
Your shoulders have borne burdens  
no one else could see.  
And your skin—  
it has felt the sting of life,  
but still, it keeps you here.  

You are not a reflection in the glass.  
You are the warmth of a laugh  
shared with someone who loves you.  
You are the strength it takes to rise again  
after breaking.  
You are the quiet, steady courage  
of a heart that refuses to stop beating.  

Forget the mirrors.  
Smash them if you must.  
Forget the rules they wrote for you.  
They were never yours to follow.  

Your scars are the proof of your survival.  
Your softness is the echo of love that stayed.  
Your imperfections are where the light gets in.  
You were never meant to be flawless—  
you were meant to be real.  

You are not here to shrink.  
You are here to take up space,  
to breathe deeply,  
to let the sun warm your face  
and the earth hold your feet steady.  
You are here to laugh too loudly,  
to cry when you need to,  
to live without apology.  

Your worth was never in how you look.  
It was never in the size of your waist  
or the curve of your smile.  
It lives in the way you dream.  
The way you love.  
The way you rise again and again,  
even when it feels impossible.  

So stand before the mirror,  
not as a critic,  
but as a witness.  
See the life that pulses through you,  
the resilience in your eyes,  
the strength in your bones.  

You.  
You, with the doubts clawing at your chest.  
You are not broken.  
You are not too much,  
not too little.  
You are not incomplete.  

You are whole.  
You always have been.

Maybe I’ve learned to accept myself,  
to find peace in who I am.  
Maybe I see the meaning in my life,  
here in the world I’ve built—  
quiet, steady,  
safe behind these walls I know too well.  

Or maybe I haven’t.  
Maybe I can’t.  
Not in a world that whispers rules into my ear—  
how to be,  
how to feel,  
how to shrink myself  
into their fragile mold.  
A world that tells me  
I am never enough,  
never complete,  
never whole.  

Maybe I dream of freedom—  
of skies that stretch like open arms,  
of oceans murmuring my name,  
promising a world untouched by fear.  
But out there,  
even the streets are battles.  
At night, I’m too afraid to walk alone,  
because I know the eyes are waiting—  
to measure,  
to judge,  
to shrink me into something less than I am.  

Maybe I’ve started to like myself now,  
more than I ever did before.  
Maybe it’s because I’ve stopped trying to fit  
into their broken world,  
a world that demands more and more  
until I forget who I am.  

But maybe I’ve lost something, too.  
Maybe the love I had for myself  
was stolen by a world  
that feeds on envy,  
a machine built to divide us,  
to make us compete,  
until we tear each other apart.  
While above us,  
those who built it  
watch without consequence.  

Maybe I am enough—  
not as they define me,  
not as they demand,  
but as I am.  
Maybe it’s time to smash the reflection  
they forced me to see,  
to shatter the image  
and recognize this truth:  
this system was never made for us.  
It was never built to lift us,  
to heal us,  
to make us whole.  
It was built to keep us small.  

What if we stopped feeding their lies?  
What if we let the chains fall,  
reached for each other,  
and refused to play their game?  
Because we were never meant  
to live in a world  
that tells us every day  
we are not enough.  

We were meant to rise,  
to find beauty in the scars they taught us to hide,  
to build a life that is ours,  
not theirs.  

And maybe—just maybe—  
we’ve been enough all along.  
Not because they told us so,  
but because we dared to believe it.

a canvas stretched wide,
bathed in sun and light,
the air alive with motion.
They swim in the rhythm of waves,
their bodies weightless,
their laughter endless.
But I am still.
Still as stone,
bound by a body
that feels like it isn’t mine.

Their eyes—
arrows, silent but sharp,
cut through the fragile armor I wear.
Each gaze slices deeper,
each glance whispers a truth
I cannot escape:
“You don’t belong.”

The thought of the water haunts me.
Its surface a mirror I dare not face,
its depths a question I cannot answer.
To strip away these layers,
to stand exposed,
feels like peeling flesh from bone.
I imagine their stares—
unrelenting,
unyielding.
The weight of their silence crushes me.
I can’t breathe here.
Not like this.

I stood on a podium once,
but it felt like a stage.
The cheers wrapped around my throat,
their applause thundered in my chest.
I smiled,
because that’s what they wanted,
but my legs trembled
beneath the weight of their eyes.
Every look was a blade,
every smile a mirror.
I wanted to run,
but there was nowhere to hide.

Inside, a war rages.
“You’re too much.
You’re not enough.
You don’t deserve to be seen.”
The words etch themselves into my skin,
leaving scars I can’t show.
This body is a house of shattered glass,
each shard reflecting the person
I cannot become.

My hands scratch at my arms,
as if I could claw my way out,
as if this skin were a suit I could shed.
My leg bounces,
my breath falters.
The air feels sharp,
too heavy to swallow.
I close my eyes,
wishing myself into nothingness.
To vanish—
to be unseen, untouched.

The thought of their company terrifies me.
Every move I make feels wrong,
every step a mistake.
The fear pulls me under,
its grip unrelenting,
its weight unbearable.

I sit here,
watching the world drift by,
its colors bright and blurred.
The waves rise and fall,
but I remain still,
a stone sinking quietly into the earth.
I don’t want to swim today.
Not today.
Not with this body
that anchors me to a depth
I cannot escape.

It aches.
A quiet, endless ache.
Each second stretches longer than the last.
But somewhere—
beneath the weight,
beneath the fear—
there is a whisper:
“Not today, but maybe someday.”

Perhaps one day,
this body will be a garden,
and not a battlefield.
Perhaps one day,
I will stand in the sun,
whole and unbroken.
But today, I sit here,
with this fear,
with this body,
learning to breathe,
learning to live.
And I try to believe
that even this—
even this—
will not last forever.

12 hours, and the silence swallows me whole.
I sit here, waiting for a version of you
that feels farther away with every passing second.
You are not here,
though my heart breaks in your name.
A fleeting moment is all you give me—
a borrowed evening,
just enough to keep me afloat,
but never enough to pull me
from the undertow.

12 hours of stillness,
each minute stretching like an ocean,
waves of absence crashing over me.
You choose distance,
choose tasks that keep your hands busy,
your mind distracted.
And I?
I am left to hold the weight
of this emptiness alone.
12 hours—and I wonder
how it feels to become invisible,
to watch myself fade
into the edges of your thoughts.

12 hours, and each breath feels borrowed,
shallow, strained.
The air around me thickens,
pressing against my ribs—
a quiet suffocation
that fills the space where you are not.
The walls grow colder,
the room heavier,
until I am no longer solid.
I dissolve into this silence,
tears carving rivers down my skin,
my body crumbling
beneath the weight of your absence.

Curled against the void,
I trace the cracks in the ceiling,
searching for answers
you cannot give me.
You say you cannot stay,
your mind too full,
your world too heavy.
And yet, you love me—
or so you say.
But your love feels like water slipping through my fingers:
something I cannot hold,
something that leaves me dry and aching.
You love me in fragments,
and I cling to every shard,
even as they cut me open.

12 hours, and I am a flicker
on the edges of your world,
a placeholder in a life
you’ve already rewritten.
While you chase peace,
I am swallowed by the shadows you leave—
they stretch wide,
cold as winter’s breath.
12 hours, and I lose myself
to the silence you’ve wrapped around us.

I give you these hours—
a gift I cannot afford to offer.
Time, so heavy in my hands,
slips through the cracks of this endless waiting.
I give you space
to heal the parts of yourself
that pull you away from me,
even as I break in the seconds
that stand between us.
12 hours where I try
to keep breathing,
to keep existing,
to keep holding on,
without the warmth of your hands,
the steadiness of your voice,
the anchor of your love.

12 hours, and the clock ticks slow as grief—
two minutes stretched into lifetimes.
I am unraveling,
each breath a question
that has no answer.
Perhaps one day,
you’ll cross the distance between us,
a bridge we built from words
but never dared to walk.
Perhaps one day,
I will find myself again
outside the shadow of your absence.
But today, I sit here,
in the silence,
and only two minutes have passed.

One day,
I will fade into the quiet corners of your memory,
not with thunder, not with fire,
but like a soft echo swallowed by time.
Not today, not tomorrow,
but someday,
you’ll see me for what I truly was—
not a person,
but a fragment,
a reflection of everything you hoped to find.

You didn’t love me.
You loved the promise of who I could be,
the dream you built from my broken edges.
You loved the colors you painted over my cracks,
not the emptiness beneath.
The only light I carried
was the glow of your own love,
shining through me,
casting shadows I could never escape.

And when you see the truth,
you’ll wonder:
Was it love that kept you here,
or the quiet desperation to fix what was already lost?
Was it my touch you needed,
or the hope that I might become something whole,
something I never was,
something I never could be?

Maybe you’ll feel anger.
Not at me,
but at the hours, the years,
spent holding onto something that slipped
through your fingers like water.
You thought I could complete you,
but I was only ruins—
and you,
you were building cathedrals from rubble.

You’ll grieve.
Not for me,
but for the pieces of yourself you left behind.
You’ll mourn the ghost of us,
the fragile illusion that tethered you to me.
And one day,
my name will fall from your lips like dust—
soft, forgotten,
a memory too faint to hold.
You’ll laugh at what once was,
and it will no longer sting.

You’ll heal.
You’ll find roots in the soil where I left ashes.
You’ll bloom in ways
I could never nourish.
And I?
I will sit with the weight of who I am—
not the villain,
but a shadow,
a trembling reflection of my own failures.

I hurt you—
not because I wanted to,
but because I didn’t know how to hold
what was pure.
My hands were too full of fractures,
too bloodied from battles I never won.
I broke you
because I was already breaking,
and your love pressed too close to the cracks.

One day,
you’ll forget me.
Because I was never the light—
only the flicker of a flame
that burned too quickly to keep you warm.
I was never the masterpiece—
just the frame,
just the shadow,
just the dream you poured yourself into,
hoping it would stay.

And when you say my name,
it will taste like water—
something once vital,
now unnoticed.
I will fade like the echo of a wave,
soft, distant,
leaving no trace upon your shore.

The train pulls away, its doors sealed shut,
and in the faint reflection of the window,
I see possibilities waving goodbye—
ghosts of “what ifs”
drifting like shadows in the distance.
Their hands are cold and relentless,
pressing against my chest,
pulling me back
to a place that no longer exists.

You stepped off,
carrying your decision like luggage,
while I stayed behind,
anchored to this blue-patterned seat.
In my lap, a notebook lies open—
its pages waiting for a story
I’m not ready to write.
The chapters of us are locked away,
their edges sharp,
their weight unbearable.

The train pulls me forward,
but my heart is an anchor
still buried in the platform where you let go.
I write of love, of loss,
of the quiet collapse of hope—
how it shatters without sound,
leaving only the fragments behind.

Outside the window,
fields stretch endlessly,
trees blur into fleeting streaks of green and gold.
But the reflection in the glass
does not let me escape.
The “what ifs” are still there,
etched into the surface,
etched into me,
whispering in loops I cannot silence.

The next station is far away,
and I am far from ready to leave.
The music in my ears blares louder,
each note a desperate attempt
to drown the quiet.
But the quiet creeps in,
turning every lyric
into a line of grief.

In the reflection,
you are gone.
But the shadow of you lingers—
a phantom in the corners of my mind,
dragging me back to what never was.

And still, the train does not stop.
It carries me forward,
pulling my body through the motion of leaving
while my heart stays behind,
lost in the endless cycle
of holding on to what I’ve already lost.

I know what awaits me
when you leave.
The silence won’t rush in—
it will seep, slow and patient,
curling into the corners,
pooling like shadowed water,
filling every crack until I drown in its weight.

I know the sun will rise,
but its light will cut like glass,
sharp and empty.
It will pour through the windows,
but it won’t touch me.
Without you, even the brightest day
will feel dim,
its warmth a hollow imitation
of what it once was.

I’ll move,
because I must.
One step, then another,
a quiet rhythm of survival.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
But every step will feel like walking through water,
every breath heavy with the weight
of all that is missing.

Tears will stay close,
not loud or demanding,
but constant,
like rain against a window—
soft, relentless,
reminding me of the cracks
I cannot repair.
I know the sound of breaking too well,
the quiet splitting of a heart
losing its fight against the weight of memory.

The nights will be longer than the days.
Sleep will slip away,
twisting out of my grasp like smoke.
The darkness will not comfort me;
it will tighten around my ribs,
chains of thought pulling me deeper,
until I am no longer sure
what is real
and what is memory.

They’ll tell me what to do.
Take a walk.
Pick up a hobby.
Distract yourself.
But every step will echo with what I’ve lost,
and every distraction
will feel like a futile attempt
to fill a void too deep for anything to reach.

I won’t write to you.
I won’t call.
I’ll try not to think of you.
But how do I grieve someone
who was never truly mine,
yet feels like the only thing
I’ve ever lost?

“Time heals all wounds,”
I’ve whispered this to others,
as if believing it myself
might make it true.
But I know better now.
Time doesn’t heal—it stretches, it loops, it folds.
It teaches you to carry the weight,
not to lessen it.
The burden remains,
constant as the ticking
of a clock in an empty room.

I know the ways to quiet the ache.
The small doses of forgetting,
the numbing blur of a world
too distant to hurt.
I know how to make the pain
feel less real,
but I also know
it waits for me in the quiet,
unchanged,
unmoved.

I know what awaits me
when you go.
I’ll breathe.
I’ll eat.
I’ll sleep.
The days will pass,
because they must.
But what if time
is not the cure they promised?

I don’t want to return—
back to the darkness,
back to the place
where everything broke.
But I feel it pulling at me already,
a quiet, unrelenting gravity.

And yet, I know.
The loss will settle into me,
a quiet shadow that never leaves,
a scar etched too deep to fade.
Because loss has always been my quiet teacher,
its lessons carved deep,
its weight the only thing I know how to carry.

Or as my father used to call me:
The failure, the fool,
the thorn in his side,
the mistake he couldn’t undo.
I was the reflection of everything
that fell apart in his life,
the shadow of his regrets,
the burden he carried without words
and without love.

His names for me linger still.
They don’t just follow me—
they settle into my skin,
carving themselves into every breath.
They tell me who I wasn’t,
who I could never be.
I was raised to surrender,
to shrink,
to vanish into the silence.

I spent a year in that silence,
locked away in a dark room,
wrapped in a blanket that felt
both like a shield and a cage.
I cried softly,
as if even my tears were shameful,
as if breaking under the weight of his words
was just one more failure.
I swallowed my cries,
letting them seep into the walls,
until even the darkness grew heavy
with my silence.

But one day,
I stood before the mirror,
and the silence began to crack.
Piece by piece,
it peeled away,
until I saw someone staring back—
not the shadow he made me believe I was,
but someone real.

I felt like Rapunzel,
climbing out of a tower built from my pain.
The same tears that drowned me
became the waters that lifted me higher.
Each step was a choice,
each rung a rebellion against his voice,
against the image of who he told me I’d be.

Now, I stand here,
holding dreams I thought I’d buried long ago.
Dreams he could never touch.
And for the first time, I say:
Maybe, somewhere, he’d see me now—
not as a thorn,
but as the flower that grew
from the seeds of his neglect.

Maybe he’d see me—
caring for two horses,
teaching children,
studying minds,
speaking poetry
from a heart that refuses
to stay silent anymore.

But even if he doesn’t,
even if his eyes remain blind,
I know now:
I am not the thorn,
not the mistake.
I am the woman who climbed,
who rose from his shadow,
who carried the weight of his words
and turned them into strength.

I am Steffie.
The child who wasn’t wanted,
but the woman who now stands tall—
not because of him,
but in spite of everything he made me believe.

Somehow,
without warning,
our paths crossed again.
And somehow, without mercy,
it hurt—
not the sharp sting of a fresh wound,
but the slow ache of a scar
that remembers every time it bled.

It hurt to meet your gaze,
to see the shadow of who we were
lingering there.
My past hung heavy on your shoulders,
and the future we dreamed of
lay scattered in the spaces
between your eyes and mine.
It hurt to hear the silence between us,
so loud with the weight
of all the words we never spoke.

It hurt to see your smile—
that familiar curve of your lips,
a fragment of something I once called mine.
It was the same smile we shared
when the world felt like it belonged to us,
when we thought love
could bend time to our will.

It hurt to walk through the places we once loved,
places that still carry the echoes of us.
Every step felt like walking through shadows,
where promises were whispered
and never kept.
The walls still remember,
even if we’ve forgotten,
the weight of a love
too fierce to last.

It hurt.

For so long, it didn’t.
I had learned to survive you,
to quiet the echoes of your voice
and forget the way your touch
once anchored me.
I thought I was fine.
I could hear your name
without trembling,
see your face without breaking.

But today,
in the cold wind and gray sky,
the girl I used to be woke up.
The one who loved you
more than she loved herself,
who gave you every piece of her,
wept quietly inside me.
She reminded me of the days
when time folded into itself,
when moments felt eternal
and all I wanted was to freeze them,
to hold them still.

That love—
wild and consuming,
always too much,
never enough—
beat through me again,
a second heart,
pounding against the walls I built.

It hurt.
To see you.
To hold you.
To feel your arms,
once my safe harbor,
now pulling me deeper
into the hollow they left behind.

I tell myself I don’t want to see you again.
Not if it means reliving this,
not if it means drowning
in the memory of what we couldn’t save.
I tell myself I don’t want to see you again.

But still—
please, just one more time.
And if you hold me,
don’t hold me lightly,
don’t hold me politely.
Hold me like the weight of us
is too much to carry alone.
Hold me like the last time
we believed in forever.

And let me be the girl who believed it too,
even as the clock whispered
that forever was never ours to keep.

You say I accuse you too often,
but you don’t know the nights
I’ve spent unraveling myself,
searching for the fault you saw in me.
You don’t know the weight of wondering—
why wasn’t I enough?
Why did my “no”
feel so heavy in my mouth,
yet so faint in your ears?
Why did I apologize for holding boundaries
I was never meant to break?


You asked—softly at first,
then sharper, more insistent.
A kiss, a touch, a little more.
Each time, my “no” cracked,
fractured under the pressure of your need.
But still, I said it,
though every refusal carried an apology
I didn’t owe.


I folded myself smaller,
shrinking beneath your disappointment.
Until one day,
I stopped saying no.
Not because I wanted to,
but because it was easier
than feeling the weight of your questions,
easier than holding the shame
of not being what you wanted.


And then,
there was the forest.
That place I can’t forget,
no matter how much distance I put between us.
It lingers in me—
a scar I keep running my fingers over,
a moment I still carry
like a wound that refuses to close.
Even then, I forgave you.
Not because I had healed,
but because you asked,
because it was easier
to give you what you wanted
than to carry the weight of my own pain.


But now,
when I speak my truth,
when I let the words escape
to lighten this burden I’ve carried for so long,
you call me unfair.
You twist my voice into something cruel,
as though I am the one
wielding the knife.


I bent myself to fit your needs,
broke myself to keep you whole.
I gave and gave,
until there was nothing left of me
but a hollow shadow,
an echo of who I used to be.


Now that I’ve found my voice again,
now that I’ve gathered the courage
to say what your silence did to me,
you hold blame to my chest
like a weight I am still expected to carry.


Maybe my words do cut—
maybe my truth has sharp edges.
But it is mine,
the only thing I have left
after giving so much of myself
to keep you from breaking.


These words are not vengeance.
They are reclamation.
They are the voice I buried for you,
the pieces I shattered
to make room for your comfort.


And now, for the first time,
I am choosing
to put myself back together.
Even if it means
you no longer recognize
the person I’ve become.

How many times have you stood before the mirror,
lost in the weight of your own reflection?
Searching for flaws in a face
that was never meant to be perfect,
peeling apart pieces of yourself
as though perfection could make you whole.


Your nose—too bold, too sharp,
a defiance carved into your skin.
Your stomach—too soft, too human,
a place where life gathers
but shame has settled.
Your skin—etched with the passage of time.
Your lips—too quiet to scream,
too tired to smile.


And so you trace these features,
as though rearranging them
could finally make the mirror kind.
You reshape, you erase,
you starve yourself into silence,
bending to the world’s demands—
a world that has never deserved
the beauty you already carry.


But the mirror,
the mirror has always lied.
True beauty is not found in its shallow gaze.
It does not live in the absence of flaws,
but in the depth of your story.
It is written in the scars
you try to hide,
in the strength of your tender heart,
in the quiet fire that still burns
behind your tired eyes.


It is in the way your body carries
the weight of all you’ve survived,
a testament to the storms
that could not break you.
Can you not see it?


This body, this home,
has endured the chaos of life,
stood steady through trembling hands,
and held you upright
when the world tried to pull you down.


Your hands—
they have wiped away tears,
offered warmth,
built and rebuilt the pieces of others.
Your heart—
it has bled,
but it has also loved
with a ferocity that leaves echoes
long after you are gone.
Your eyes—
they have seen both stars and shadows,
and still, they shine.


This is beauty:
not the image the mirror reflects,
but the life it cannot show.
It is the way you bring light to others,
even when you feel like fading.
It is the way you carry kindness
through the weight of your pain,
the way your presence
softens the edges of the world.


Why let the mirror tell your story
when it only sees the surface?


True beauty has always lived deeper—
in the cracks where light spills through,
in the tenderness of your imperfections,
in the resilience you never thought you had.
Your body is not a prison;
it is a sanctuary.
It is a canvas painted
with memories of growth and survival,
a map of all you’ve endured,
a masterpiece shaped by time and love.


Let go of the mirror’s whispers.
Look beyond its glass walls,
to the vastness of who you are.


You are not what you see—
you are the laughter that fights the silence,
the tears that soften your soul,
the love that radiates outward
without asking for return.


True beauty is not in fitting into a frame,
but in breaking free from it.
It is in the way you hold the darkness,
turn it to light,
and give it to others—
with a smile that mends the broken,
a voice that soothes the wounded,
a touch that heals what feels lost.


And if you look further,
past the horizon of your reflection,
you will see—
you have never been alone.
We are all made of the same stardust,
bound by the same threads of longing and hope,
etched with the same stories
of pain and triumph.


You are beautiful—
not because you are perfect,
but because you are real.
Because you love,
because you endure,
because you exist in a world
that has tried to make you disappear.


You are beautiful—
not in spite of your flaws,
but because of them.
You are whole,
even in the moments you feel broken.
You are enough,
even when you cannot believe it.

I despise the face that greets me,
a hollow echo of who I should be.
Eyes like storm-worn glass,
carrying the weight of too many stares,
yet unseen by all.
The smile—fragile, trembling—
fractures under its own weight,
crumbling into silence.


I do not laugh anymore—
not for you,
not for them,
not even for myself.
The mirror holds my shame,
reflecting a stranger
I am too afraid to face.


I hide behind walls,
away from prying eyes,
because this version of me
should never be seen.


Makeup can’t mask the cracks beneath,
the jagged edges that bleed through.
Don’t ask for pictures;
you wouldn’t want to see them.
Even I can’t bear to look
without breaking.
And these arms—
they wear stories carved in shadow,
etched into skin
like silent screams.
My hands have never known
the warmth of being held.
My shoulders,
always drawn tight,
carry the weight of fear—
fear of touch,
fear of knowing,
fear of being known.


Don’t look at me.
These eyes hold no stars,
only the dark void where light once lived.
My lips form no words,
only screams I’ve swallowed
to keep the world from breaking with me.


The mirror doesn’t lie.
It shows a ruin,
a failure.
And I?
I turn away,
tears blurring the lines of my reflection,
wishing I could wear another life,
another face,
just for a moment.


I know I am not what you hoped for.
So leave.
Run from the monster I see in my reflection.
Find someone untouched by shadows,
someone whole,
someone worthy.


I am not the dream you deserve.
You will shatter
if you try to hold me.
So go—
before my edges cut into your hands.


I was never enough—
not for you,
not for anyone,
not even for myself.
I can’t heal you.
I can’t heal me.
I can’t be the light
when my own flame has burned to ash.


I give all I have,
and still, it is never enough.
And yet, somewhere in the quiet,
a whisper stirs:
what if someone, someday,
could see past the fractures?
What if someone could love the chaos,
the scars,
the raw, unpolished edges of me?
What if someone could find beauty
where I see only ruin?


Just once,
I want to see myself through their eyes—
to meet the version of me
they believe exists.
To hear a voice, soft and certain,
say, “You are enough.
You are worthy.”
To watch the cracks fade into gold,
the shadows soften into light,
until the stranger in the mirror
becomes someone
I finally recognize.

It’s not the distance that cuts the deepest—
it’s the silence.
The way your presence lingers,
but no longer fills the room.


You slip through my hands
like a tide pulling back,
leaving behind fragments
of a love we once called unbreakable.


Once, I was your everything.
I could see it in the way your gaze found me,
in the way your words held my fears.
But now your eyes drift past mine,
your words land hollow,
like whispers from a stranger.


When did we stop understanding the silence?
When did the space between us grow so wide?
Our conversations are cold now,
the warmth lost
like the final embers of a forgotten fire.


No “I miss you,”
no “How’s your heart today?”
Not even a whisper to say,
“I’m still here.”
Do you notice the quiet?
Do you feel the shift?
Because I do.
Every second, I feel it.
We were once a symphony,
every note in perfect harmony.
Now, we are static,
a broken melody
with no bridge to carry us back.


Did I hold too tightly?
Or not tightly enough?
Am I the one who slipped,
or did you let go first?
Am I not enough for you now?
Did I lose the part of me
you used to love?
Have the words run dry,
or do we no longer believe
in the power they once held?


You feel like a shadow now—
near enough to touch,
but cold and weightless.
And still, being near you
feels like coming home.
Not the home we built together,
but the ruins,
a memory of walls that once stood strong.


This distance—
it terrifies me.
You were my anchor,
my constant.
Now I am untethered,
drifting in an ocean of what-ifs,
aching for the shore I can no longer see.
Somewhere along the way,
we unraveled.
Not in a single moment,
but in the quiet, unnoticed spaces
we thought wouldn’t matter.


And now, all I can ask is:
did you feel it too?
At night, the panic swells,
the thought of losing you
an unbearable weight on my chest.
Am I holding on too tightly?
Or have you already let go?


I still want to be her—
the girl you once saw,
the one who made you believe.
But I feel her slipping away,
just as I feel myself fading from your eyes.

You’ve done nothing wrong.
It’s okay if you need to leave.
I can’t ask you to stay.
But God, the pain—
the pain of letting you go,
the ache of still hoping
you’ll turn back,
that we’ll find our way back to us,
back to what we were,
even when I know
you’re already gone.

“I could have anyone,”
they say it with a smile,
as though I am something to be won,
as though my worth is measured
by the hands that reach for me
and the voices that whisper lies.

“The boys must line up for you,”
my grandmother said it once,
her words innocent, hopeful,
not knowing how hollow they would become.
And yes, they line up –
but not for me, not really.
They come for the body,
for the curve of my waist,
for the lips that smile but don’t speak.
They come for a flame
they never intend to keep alight.

They take.
Their hands find warmth
while my soul freezes,
the emptiness seeping into my bones.
They burn with borrowed fire,
but I am left cold.
Every touch is a theft,
every kiss a reminder
that I am more –
and yet, somehow, I am not enough.

I let it happen.
How could I not?
I grew up in rooms where love was silent,
where warmth was a stranger
and hearts learned to beat quietly.
So I became a performer,
a silhouette in their fantasies:
a neckline just low enough,
a voice soft enough to please,
a presence fleeting enough
to never be a burden.

I can have anyone tonight.
Someone to hold me,
to whisper sweetness in my ear,
to promise nothing and take everything.
Someone who sees only skin,
who thinks the glow of my body
means there’s no darkness within.
But when the night ends –
what remains of me?

The sheets grow cold.
The mirror reflects someone I don’t know,
someone whose worth lives only
in borrowed moments,
whose beauty is a currency
for those who will never stay.
They touch me like fire,
but no one dares to step into the flames.

I am enough to want,
but not enough to choose.
I am the pause in their chaos,
the silence they fill with their hands.
I am seen,
but never truly known.
I am held,
but never kept.

And it breaks me –
the weight of their leaving,
the knowing that my soul is too vast
for their shallow hearts.
I want more.
I ache for more.
For someone who doesn’t line up,
who doesn’t take
and vanish into the dawn.

But here’s the truth –
I can have anyone I want,
except someone who stays.
I can light a fire in their veins,
but they won’t see
the embers burning in mine.

I am not just a body.
I am not just a moment.
But to them, I am only that:
a breath, a flame, a flicker –
gone.

And when the night ends,
I remain.
Cold.
Alone.
And aching to be seen –
not for what they take,
but for what I am.

More than a moment.
More than their eyes will ever see.
More than they will ever hold.

We kissed.
Finally.
It was beautiful.
Or maybe I needed it to be.

He was beautiful.
The kiss, the moment—
all shimmering illusions,
glittering like broken glass in the dark.
But what made it truly intoxicating
was the haze we let consume us.
We were so full. So empty.

Full of poison—
a quiet fire that softened the edges
of truths too sharp to face.
It dulled our fears,
convinced us that what we felt
was something real,
something tangible,
something we could hold onto.

But was it real?
Did I kiss him,
or did I kiss the lie we shared?
The lie that let us drown
in a closeness that wasn’t really there.
We didn’t see each other.
Not truly.
We stared through the haze,
two lost souls brushing fingertips
but never daring to grasp.

And when the haze faded,
when the silence settled like dust in the room,
the glances spoke—
soft, trembling, unsure.
Eyes that lingered just long enough
to ask a question,
but not brave enough
to search for the answer.

The air grew colder.
The warmth of his hands—
a memory already smoldering,
ash falling between us.

I saw him.
A man drowning in himself,
a heart hidden behind walls too high to climb.
And me?
I am no better.
I hide, too—
my fear tucked between words unspoken,
a dam holding back a river of feelings
I am too afraid to release.

We don’t know who we are.
We don’t know what we want.
But we feel it.
It hums beneath our silence,
an ache we cannot name.
A closeness we taste
but refuse to swallow,
a truth we bury
because we fear what it might mean.

Maybe you are my poison.
Maybe I am yours.
We drink each other slowly,
a bitter medicine for wounds
we don’t know how to heal.
It’s easier this way.
Easier to let the haze lie for us.
Easier to let a kiss pretend
it’s enough.

And when the night ends—
when the haze is gone
and the morning cuts through the dark—
what’s left?

We kissed.
It was beautiful.
But beauty fades.
And when I look at you,
I wonder:

What could we have been,
if we weren’t so afraid to feel?

Maybe this chapter—
this life, this ache—
isn’t about love.
At least not the kind I dream of
when the nights stretch on too long.
Perhaps it’s about seeing love everywhere,
in the way the sky blushes at dawn,
in the quiet hum of a lonely room,
in the broken places of my own reflection.

Self-love.
That’s what they call it.
A soft, gentle promise—
“You can be enough for yourself.”
It sounds beautiful, doesn’t it?
Like a song you want to believe in.
And yes, there’s freedom in being alone.
I can breathe.
I can wander.
I can build a life that asks for no one.

But when I’m honest—
beneath all that strength,
beneath the facades I wear like armor,
I am hollow.
I am aching.
I long for love.

Maybe it’s because I never had a home.
No warm hands to hold me steady,
no soft voices to call me safe.
Or maybe because my home died
when I was fourteen—
when the only person who ever loved me
left me with silence.
And I learned, far too young,
that grief wears many faces.
Sometimes, it’s an empty chair at the dinner table.
Sometimes, it’s a house that echoes
with everything unsaid.

I grew up without a map,
without someone to show me
what love feels like.
How to give it. How to receive it.
And so, I searched for it in empty places—
in hands that took pieces of me
but never stayed.
In words that felt warm for a moment
but turned cold by morning.

Love is a mystery.
A lighthouse glowing in the fog,
always visible, always distant,
calling me toward something
I can never quite touch.
They talk about love
like it’s simple, like it’s everywhere,
but why does it feel
like it was never meant for me?

If my father,
or anyone from the ruins of my family,
could not love me—
who could?

Being alone is safer.
Easier.
Here, no one leaves.
Here, no one promises
what they cannot give.
But no matter how much I build,
no matter how much I hold myself together,
there’s a space inside me
where the ache lives.
And I long for love.

So much so,
I would give everything I am to have it.
Can you love me as much as I hate myself?
Can you fill the void with something real?
Steady hands, steady words,
to calm the storms that live in me.
Can you love me in a way
that makes the silence feel less heavy,
that makes the mirror show something
other than cracks and shadows?

Please.
Please, love me.
Because I cannot.
I’ve tried.
God knows, I’ve tried.
But every time I reach for the person I see—
she slips through my fingers.
She feels small, unworthy,
a puzzle with missing pieces
no one wants to find.

Love me,
because maybe, if you do—
if someone sees me,
truly sees me—
I’ll believe I’m not broken.
Maybe one day,
I won’t need to beg.
Maybe one day,
I’ll stand alone,
look in the mirror,
and whisper,
“I am enough.”

You say you love me,
but in the crowd, I disappear.
I’m standing here—
close enough to touch,
close enough to breathe you in—
and yet, your eyes drift past me,
as if I’m nothing more
than the air between us.
Your hands hold me,
but they don’t reach me.
You skim the surface,
never diving deep enough
to find where I truly live.

We share this bond,
this silent thread spun between glances,
a language no one else can hear.
But when the noise of the world rises,
when faces blur into one,
I fade.
I become a shadow,
existing only
when you choose to see me.

I feel you near me,
your words,
your breath,
the weight of everything you don’t say.
But still, you are blind.
You say you love me,
but love isn’t quiet like this.
It doesn’t hide behind shallow gazes.
It doesn’t leave me wondering
if I am real
or just a reflection
you need to keep yourself company.

Am I a truth to you,
or a lie you whisper to fill the silence?
A creation of your own design,
a love that lives in the safety of your mind
but crumbles in the light of day?
Here, among others,
I vanish.
And I ask myself—
is this blindness unintentional?
Or do you look away
because you fear what you might see?

I crave your eyes—
not the fleeting glance,
not the kind that grazes over me
and moves on.
I want the gaze that stays,
that lingers,
that searches for the depths
you pretend aren’t there.
I want to be seen in the noise,
in the chaos,
in the places where love must fight to exist.

You say you love me,
but I feel it—
I feel how I disappear
when others call your name.
As if my presence is only valuable
when there’s no one else to fill the silence.

And so, I stand still.
I wait.
I hold my breath,
hoping you’ll find me in the crowd,
hoping your eyes will lock onto mine
and refuse to let go.
Not just when it’s easy,
not just when we’re alone,
but when the world demands your attention.
Choose me.
See me.
Not for a moment,
but always.

Because I’m here.
I’ve always been here.
And I don’t want to be your shadow,
your almost,
your sometimes.
I want to be your always.
But if you can’t see me—
if you won’t—
then let me go.

I will not beg for love
that cannot bear to look at me,
even when I stand in the light.

I am no longer pure.
No longer the tender girl I once believed I was—
The kind, soft-spoken child,
Whose silence painted her lovable.
I was the doll in the corner,
Delicate, pristine, fragile—
A sweet and breakable thing.
I spoke little but saw everything,
Carrying the weight of worlds too large for my hands.
I was quiet, obedient,
Too small to draw lines where lines were needed.
They called me precious.
They called me theirs.
And I let them.

I gave myself away in pieces—
Small gifts to the undeserving.
I bled my heart dry for those who never stopped to wonder if I would break.
I carried the burdens of others,
But never my own.
And then, I shattered.
Quietly.
Repeatedly.
Until the cracks in my skin carved scars in theirs.

It wasn’t malice.
It wasn’t choice.
It was pain spilling over—
Overflowing onto the innocent.

I told myself it wasn’t me.
That I was still kind. Still good.
But the mirror doesn’t lie.
I saw her
A stranger with my face.
I lied when I should have screamed.
I stayed when I should have left.
I agreed to things that unraveled me,
Then denied their truth.
I lost the girl I was
The one with the open heart,
The one who wanted so deeply to be more.

Now, they whisper behind me:
“She’s not who she was.
She’s not the one we loved.
She’s ruined now, isn’t she?”
And I wonder if they’re right.
Because I’ve made mistakes.
I’ve hurt those who didn’t deserve it,
With words I didn’t mean,
With silence I shouldn’t have held.

I thought I was better.
Better than my wounds,
Better than my past.
But I failed.
I bled.
And others bled with me.

I was numb.
Then I was too much
Feeling everything at once.
Pain turned to fire,
And fire to frost.
I burned bridges and froze hearts.
I don’t know which is worse.
I’ve stood in the ashes of what I’ve done,
And I’ve cried for the ruins I’ve left behind.
I’ve stared into the mirror,
And hated the weight of my own gaze.

I am not who I was.
Not the soft girl,
Not the sweet soul you remember.

But please believe me when I say



I never meant to harm.
I didn’t want to leave you with scars.
I didn’t want your tears to bear my name.
I wanted to hold you,
To love you gently,
To be the warmth you turned to.

But I failed.


I wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t right for you.


And maybe I wasn’t right for anyone.



Still, I hope you remember the light we shared,
Even as the shadows swallowed me whole.
I hope you live the dreams you painted for me,
Meet someone who sees you in all your brilliance.

And though I know I don’t deserve it,
I hope you forgive me.

I carry the weight of what I’ve done.


But I carry love for you too.



Always.

Eyes of Fear
Can you see her?
The way she laughs as she twirls,
effortless, unstoppable,
her rhythm pulling me into her storm.
I stand still, frozen,
trapped in the shadow she casts.
Do you see her?
There, in the grey-blue of my eyes,
watching, waiting,
whispering commands I cannot ignore.
Do you see the fear?
She hides in the depths,
lurking in the quiet spaces of my soul.
If you dared to look closer,
you’d feel her too.
She steals my breath 
before the day can claim it,
her hands wrapped tightly around my chest,
pressing until I am hollow.
The scent of fresh bread,
warm tea, sweet juice –
they mock me.
My plate stays empty,
my glass untouched.
I hear her voice screaming:
"Not that bread. Not those calories.
If you eat now,
if you take more than you deserve,
you’ll become too much –
you’ll be too much."
I‘ve always been too much —

The phone rings.
A message lights up the screen.
I don’t answer.
I don’t look.
I don’t want to know.
I don’t want to hear
 what disaster awaits me this time.
I want to step outside,
but the door is a fortress,
its hinges groaning beneath the weight of my hesitation.
The world beyond is too loud, too bright –
a sea of faces, voices, laughter.
Every glance feels like a verdict,
every word a whisper about me.
They know my flaws.
They see my cracks.
My thoughts spin endlessly,
a hurricane with no eye.
I need to buy groceries,
but I wait for nightfall.
The dark hides me better.
Fewer people.
Fewer eyes.
No one to judge the weight of me.
Fear dances,
her laughter echoing in every corner.
She knows no fear herself.
She drags me to the darkest places,
relishing my trembling.
Her favorite season?
Always Halloween.
Fear rises before the dawn,
her shadow stretching long over my bed.
She wakes me before the sun,
her voice a relentless drumbeat:
"I am here. I will always be here."
Once,
she was meant to protect me.
But now,
she tears me apart.
I fear her,
the way she whispers my failures back to me,
the way she plants doubt like seeds in my mind,
until I can no longer tell
where her voice ends and mine begins.
How do you silence a shadow
 that breathes through your soul?
But even shadows cannot exist
 without the light they fight to obscure.
Perhaps,
somewhere beyond the darkness,
a spark still waits for me.