I’ve learned to find comfort in the quiet,  
Where my thoughts are my only company,  
And I’m the quiet moments, I wonder
if the comfort of solitude is worth the ache of being unknown

I’ve grown accustomed to the stillness,  
To the certainty that I need no one,  
And no one needs me.  

But sometimes,  
A flicker of something else emerges,  
A longing I can’t quite place or name.  

It comes in brief flashes,  
When I see others laugh together,  
When I hear someone speak my name with genuine care,  

And for a fleeting moment,  
I wonder what it might feel like.  
To be held in the circle of someone’s warmth,  

To be seen not as a passing shadow,  
But as something more.

Yet, just as quickly as it comes,  
I pushed it away.  
Perhaps it’s safer here.  

In the silence I’ve known,  
Where there are no expectations,  
No disappointments,  

Only the steady rhythm of solitude  
That has always been my own.  

Still, sometimes in the quiet of the night,  
I wonder if, somewhere deep inside,  
I am waiting for something  
Or someone  

To break through this stillness,  
And remind me what it means  
To belong.

I’m weird,  
for dreaming in broad daylight,
for speaking in riddles,
and letting my silence speak louder than words.  

I’m weird,
because my thoughts spill out in silence,
hovering on my lips like secrets,
and when I speak,
the world looks away,
as if the truth in my voice
is something they’re not ready to hear.

I’m weird,
for finding beauty in broken things—
the fragments others throw away,
and in the bruises I hide beneath my skin.
They whisper stories,
reminding me of the pieces I hold together in myself,
stories (that) only I seem to understand.

I’m weird,  
because I laugh when I want to cry,  
and cry when no one else does—  
my tears fall for the stars,  
and my heart breaks for the moon.  
I feel too much,  
love too fiercely,  
as if my soul was made  
for a world too fragile to last.

I’m weird,
for I don’t fit in the spaces they give me,  
so I carve my own,  
even if it means standing  
on the edge, alone.

But if weird is what I am,  
then let it be,  
for I’d rather be this beautiful ache,  
this painful bloom of something true,  
than fold myself small enough  
to fit into a world  
that never made room  
and never will.

I’m weird,  
and maybe that’s the best thing I’ll ever be—  
not perfect, not easy to understand,  
but real, raw,  
and unashamed  
of every odd, jagged piece  
that makes me whole.

You called it friendship.
But it wasn’t friendship, was it?
Not when you held my heart in your hands,
a fragile, trembling thing—
and you squeezed,
just enough to feel it crack,
just enough to keep me begging for air.

Every glance was an anchor.
Every word, a trap.
You weren’t careless—
you were calculated.
You gave just enough to keep me alive,
just enough to make me believe
that maybe I could matter to someone.
But not to you.
Never to you.

You wanted the devotion,
but not the responsibility.
The love,
but not the weight of it.
You pulled the strings,
watched me twist,
and when I shattered,
you stood back,
arms crossed,
and blamed me for breaking.

Because I was never the destination.
I was just another trophy for your shelf,
another fragile soul to notch on your belt.
You smiled like you’d won,
like breaking me was your masterpiece,
while I drowned in the weight
of never being enough for you.

You flirted like it was a game,
like hearts were trophies
you could collect and discard.
But when the cracks in your mask showed,
when the truth of your manipulation
became too hard to hide,
you turned on me.
You called me needy.
You called me too much.
You made me question my sanity
for believing the lies you whispered
like the truth.

And God, how you made me want you.
Like a starving man chasing crumbs,
I followed,
grateful for the scraps
that fell from your careless hands.
I swallowed your indifference like poison,
and called it love.

I wasn’t your victim,
not in your mind.
No, you made me your villain—
a desperate fool who wanted too much,
when all you were offering
was the hollow shell of companionship.
But you didn’t just offer friendship.
You dangled love in front of me
like a prize I could earn
if only I tried hard enough.

And when I reached out,
when I dared to hope,
you recoiled—
not out of surprise,
but out of calculated cruelty.
As if the problem wasn’t your lies,
but my belief in them.

You manipulated my heart
like it was an instrument
you could play to your tune.
You twisted my feelings,
turned my trust into a weapon
and aimed it straight at me.
And when I fell,
you didn’t even look back.
You just walked away,
leaving me to choke
on the blame you shoved down my throat.

You made me feel
like I was never enough—
not for you,
not for anyone.
You left me staring at my own reflection,
wondering what was so broken in me
that I could never be loved.
You turned my kindness into a flaw,
my vulnerability into a weakness,
and my love into something shameful.

And the cruelest part?
You knew.
You knew exactly what you were doing.
You dangled yourself
just close enough to taste,
but never enough to hold.
You made me feel like a child
chasing shadows—
a game I couldn’t win.

And I—
I was the fool who stayed,
who waited,
who let your breadcrumbs lead me
to this jagged edge.

And now, here I am,
clinging to the ledge of who I used to be,
on the edge where you left me,
the wind ripping through my chest,
the rocks below calling my name.
Because for a moment,
just one agonizing moment,
it feels easier to fall—
to let go, to end the ache you left behind—
than to keep living
in a world where you exist,
untouched by the wreckage you caused.

Because you left me with nothing—
not even myself.

But here’s the truth you’ll probably never face:
You were the broken one.
You used people to fill the void inside you,
and when they got too close,
you shoved them into the fire
and called it their fault for burning.
You built a life
on the ashes of the hearts you destroyed,
and you smiled like you won.

But one day,
the mirrors will crack.
The lies will catch up to you.
And when you’re standing alone,
wondering why no one stays,
you’ll remember me.
Not as the fool who loved you,
but as the one who climbed back onto the cliff,
not because I wasn’t enough,
but because I was too much for your hollow hands to hold.

And you’ll finally understand:
You didn’t win.
You never did.
You only thought you did
because I let you.

you didn’t destroy me.
The only thing you destroyed
was the illusion
that you were ever worth it.

And even if I’m still bleeding,
even if my hands are torn raw
from clawing my way back
to the ledge you let me fall from,
I’ll heal.
I’ll rebuild.
I’ll become something
you’ll never understand—
whole, without you.

The kid in me stares,
through the wreckage I call my life.

His lips tremble with questions
I’ll never have the courage to answer.

His eyes do the screaming—
a silent howl that claws through my chest
and leaves me gasping for air I can’t find.
He stands there, barefoot and trembling,
holding pieces of me I swore I’d never let go of.

He’s asking me questions I don’t have answers to.
Why did I leave him in the dark?
Why did I trade his light for this hollow shell?
Why did I let the world win?
Why?
I want to tell him it wasn’t my fault—
that the cracks started small,
and before I knew it,
I was too broken to hold him.
But that would be a lie, wouldn’t it?

He only knows that I was supposed to protect him.
And I didn’t.

I left him.
I let him to rot in the shadows of my survival.
I buried him under all the things I couldn’t bear to feel.
And now he stands here,
small and fragile and impossibly naive,
holding my guilt in his tiny hands
like it’s something he’s willing to forgive.

But I can’t forgive myself.
Not for what I’ve done to him.
Not for the way I’ve become everything
he used to fear.
Not for the way I let the world cut him up,
piece by piece,
while I stood by and called it growing up.

And God,
I want to tell him I’m sorry.
But what’s the point?
Sorry doesn’t unburn the bridges.
Sorry doesn’t bring back the innocence
I traded for armor that doesn’t even fit.

He watches me burn,
and I can see it—
the confusion, the betrayal,
the faint, flickering hope
that I might still save us.

But how do I tell him
that the flames are mine?
That I struck the match,
fed the fire,
let it consume everything we were
just to survive?

He doesn’t know
what it feels like to be gutted by people who swore they loved you.
He doesn’t know
how heavy it gets when you carry the weight of everyone’s indifference.
He doesn’t know
that there’s no bottom to this kind of pain—
just an endless free fall.

But he will.
One day, he will.

And when that day comes,
he’ll look at me again,
with those same pleading eyes,
that same puzzled look.
And I’ll still have no answers.
Just this fire,
and the ashes of who we might’ve been.

I want to scream at him,
shake him,
make him understand—
that this wasn’t the plan,
that I didn’t choose this.
But the truth is heavier than any excuse.
I broke him.
And I know it.

He looks at me with pleading eyes,
as if I can fix this.
As if I can go back.
But how do I tell him that I’m too far gone?
That the fire raging inside me
isn’t something I want to put out?
That I’ve grown to love the way it burns,
even as it devours what’s left of us?

He steps closer,
and I flinch.
I can’t bear it—
the hope in his eyes,
the quiet belief that I can still be something better.
Because I can’t.
Because I won’t.

He reaches out,
his tiny fingers brushing against my burnt skin,
and for a moment,
just a moment,
I feel it.
The weight of what I’ve lost.
The pieces of myself I’ve scattered to the wind,
never expecting that one day I’d want them back.

But I can’t hold him.
I can’t let him in.
Because if I do,
he’ll see what I’ve become.
He’ll see the ashes,
the emptiness,
where a heart used to be.

And he doesn’t deserve that.
He doesn’t deserve me.

So I turn away.
I let the fire take me.
I let the flames rise higher,
consuming what’s left of the kid
I couldn’t protect.

Behind me,
I hear him whisper.
It’s not anger,
or hatred,
or even sadness.
It’s worse.
It’s hope.

“Come back,” he says.
“Please.”

But I don’t.
I can’t.
Because the truth is,
I don’t know how to.
And maybe I never will.

So I just watch him watching me,
until he fades into the smoke,
leaving me alone in the ashes—
a stranger to the boy
I was supposed to protect.

I look for him in the mirror,
but he’s gone.
And all that’s left staring back at me
is the shell of someone
he used to believe in.

One day, you wake up
and you’re not you anymore.
You look in the mirror,
but the eyes are empty,
like someone else is living there.

You didn’t notice it happening,
how you gave away pieces of yourself
just to fit, just to please.
A thousand small moments,
a smile you didn’t mean,
a “yes” when you screamed “no” inside.

You thought you were strong.
But you let them carve you down,
chisel by chisel,
until there’s nothing left but the shell
of who you used to be.

It doesn’t happen all at once.
It’s the slowest kind of death,
the kind where you’re still breathing,
but you’re gone.

And the worst part?
You did it to yourself.
Not with a knife,
but with silence,
with pretending,
with forgetting what you’re worth—
until one day,
you can’t even remember
who you used to be.

you’ve lost track of who you were —
a shadow,
a stranger in your own reflection.

you’ve erased the memory
of who you were,
now lost to the emptiness
you created.

I’ve never been the kind of person
who saves themselves.
I save others—
because it’s easier to drown saving them
than admit that I don’t know how to swim.

Call it a god complex.
Call it desperation.
Call it what happens
when you’ve spent your whole life
trying to make your bleeding useful.

I don’t save people to help them.
I save them to feel alive.
I pour myself into the cracks of their pain,
not out of kindness,
but because I’m terrified of my own emptiness.

I don’t know what I am without their chaos
to give me purpose.
Their wounds give mine meaning,
their shattering distracts me from the fact
that I’ve already fallen apart.

I don’t fix people out of love.
I fix them because I can’t stand
to look at someone else
and see the cracks I can’t fill in myself.
I fix them because if I can make them whole,
then maybe—
maybe—I’m not beyond saving.

But who am I kidding?
I don’t heal them.
I make them dependent.
I take their pain
and twist it into something I can hold.
I turn them into mirrors—
polished and sharp,
so I can see myself in their cracks.
I pour myself into their emptiness,
patch their wounds with pieces of my own soul,
then hate them for taking too much.

I feed them pieces of me until they can stand,
and then I hate them for leaving
when I have nothing left.

So I break them again.
Not because I want to—
but because I need to.
Because if they stop needing me,
then what the hell am I?

I press my fingers into their wounds,
just to watch them flinch—
just to make sure they still feel.

Because I don’t.
Not anymore.
Not in ways that matter.

And they thank me for it.
They thank me.
Because I’m careful with my cruelty,
quiet in my destruction.

It just feels disgusting,
the way I feed on their pain.
The way I tell myself
this is how it feels to matter.

I hate it.
I hate that I need them broken,
that I’ve built my worth on their dependence.
I hate that I call it love
when it’s anything but.

Because love doesn’t look like this.
It doesn’t look like carving yourself into pieces
just to fill the void in someone else.
It doesn’t look like giving away everything you are,
just to make sure they’ll stay.

But that’s all I know how to do.

I keep them close by breaking them slowly—
not enough to destroy them,
just enough to remind them
that I’m the only one
who knows how to put them back together.

And when they realize they don’t need me,
when they leave with their newfound strength,
I crumble.
Not because they’re gone,
but because they’ve taken the only proof I had
that I’m not worthless.

And I tell myself I don’t care.
That they’ll be back.
That I’ll find someone else
to fix, to break, to need me.

But deep down, I’m terrified.
Terrified of being alone with myself.
Terrified of the silence that screams louder
than any plea for help ever could.

But I don’t tell them that.
I don’t tell them I’m afraid of being alone—
that without their brokenness to distract me,
I’d have to face my own.
I don’t tell them that every time they thank me
for saving them,
it feels like a knife in my gut—
because I know the truth.

I am not a healer.
I’m not a savior.
I am a god of ruin.
I’m a parasite.
worshipped by those
too shattered to see the blood on my hands.

I live off their wounds.
I drink their tears like holy water.
I plant myself in their darkest places
and call it love.

And when they leave—
because they always leave—
I tell myself I deserve it.
That I deserve the emptiness they leave behind.
That this is what happens
when you make a home out of someone else’s pain.

But it doesn’t stop the ache.
The gnawing hunger for something I’ll never have.
The desperate, clawing need
to matter to someone,
even if it means ruining them to keep them close.

But I don’t stop.
I can’t.
Because I don’t know how to.
I don’t know how to be whole.
Because I don’t know how to love
without making it hurt.
And I guess,
I don’t deserve to.

I don’t know how to be loved
without being needed.
And I don’t know how to be needed
without making sure they’ll never leave.

And maybe one day,
I’ll stop pretending to be something I’m not.
Maybe one day,
I’ll let them go before I destroy them.
Maybe one day,
I’ll stop carving my survival into their scars.

But today isn’t that day.
Today, I’ll keep burning them,
keep breaking them,
keep tearing them down—
again and again.
because it’s all I know how to do.