i am a pouring pitcher,
filling every cracked cup,
yet my own glass
stays empty.

i wonder if someone
will see me
evaporate—
but they don’t.

still, i pour,
hoping the universe
will fill me back—
it never does.

they say,
you can’t have this body
and this sickness.

but they don’t hear
the screaming silence,
don’t see
the empty plates,
don’t feel
the shame that
swallows you whole.

to them,
you are just
too much.
to you,
you are never
enough.

envy is a strange thing
i scrolled through
the life of a boy
i had never known,
watched the love
pour over him
like flowers on a grave,
watched the silence
turn to screams
of “i miss you”
& “why did you leave?”

& i thought,
what would they say
about me?
would their silence
finally break?
would their love
finally bloom?

but then i realized—
he is not here
to feel it,
to hear it,
to carry it.
& i—
i am still here.
& if i am still here,
there is still time
to teach them
how to love me
while i am alive.

—stay, even if the love feels quiet.

how do you measure love
when your heart is a wildfire
& theirs is a candle?

i want a love
that burns my skin
just to prove it’s real,
but they tell me
that warmth
is enough.

maybe i want too much—
a love that spills over,
a love that consumes,
but isn’t that what love is
supposed to feel like?

because if it’s not desperate,
if it’s not all-encompassing,
then how do i know
it’s real?

they call it "too intense,"
but all i hear
is "not enough."

if i carved my pain
into my skin,
if i starved myself
into nothing,
if i made a graveyard
of my body,
would you believe me then?

tell me,
how much of me
must i destroy
before you see
i'm already gone?