Love.
They say you will find it,
Hopefully, you will feel it,
Learn to need it
and finally feel alive.

Well, that's a lie.
Love will leave you broken.
Grabbing at your chest
trying to rip your heart open.

All you feel is pain.
Fire running through your veins.
Yet, you still want more.

Feeling scared.
Overwhelmed with all these feelings.
Nothing is right.
Put up that wall.
Start to fight.

Breaking and crumbling,
the walls coming down.
Starting to panic
trying to cry out;
can't make a sound

Feeling alone and unwanted.
Understanding what went wrong.
Nothing is your fault...or is it all?
You start to fall.

It's all your fault.
Have to make it right.
You try and try
but they still pass you by.

Head is aching,
body shaking.
Going to explode.
Might overflow.

Numb.
Feelings start to disappear.
You're fine.
You're okay.
Why did you care anyway?

Get up.
Head held high.
You don't need love,
not worth your time.

So much pain.
So much blood.
Too many tears,
all wasted on love.

You are enough.
All you need is me.
No more blood
pain and tears.

I searched for light in everyone else
Lost who I was, dimmed myself.
I cried, I bent, I paid the cost
I am enough- I always was.

Love didn't save you.
But you loved anyway.

That's the kind of brave
they don't put into stories.

The world doesn't wait
for your heart to heal.

It spins,
loud and unfair,
while you try to remember
how to stand.

But some mornings,
you laugh anyway.
That's power.

I've never had a five-year plan.
Sometimes, I barely have a Tuesday plan.
But here I am-
heart in one hand, snack in the other,
trying my best not to overthink my own breathing.

People say "be yourself"
like that's a simple thing.
But I've been about five different people this week
and honestly?
They all had good points.

I've felt everything and nothing
at the exact same time,
and let me tell you-
it's a weird party.
No one knows who brought the chips.

I've forgiven myself
for things I still flinch about.
I've moved on
without moving anywhere.
I've stood still
and felt the earth sprint underneath me.

No, I'm not lost.
I'm just...in progress.
A draft.
A half-done thought with great potential.

And maybe that's enough.
Maybe I'm enough
even when I don't feel like a poem.
Just a scribble
with really good timing.

They said it gets better-
they never said when.

So you stitched light
into the edges of your pain
and called it surviving.

But some nights,
you fell joy
with no warning.

And that's enough.

You come in bare, no map, no guide,
Just a breath and the world's weight,
Thrown into a place that makes you decide
What's real, what's fake, what's worth the wait.

They don't tell you the path's a maze,
Where every turn's a guess,
And pain becomes the price you pay
To learn what's love and what's a mess.

You step forward, bruised and blind,
But every fall, you start to see:
Your truth's a thing you have to find-
It's never handed, it's just free.

So you build, you fight, you learn to stand,
And the world will try to tear it down,
But you've got to hold what's in your hands,
Or you'll let them turn your crown.

It's easy to lose yourself in them,
To shape yourself for others' eyes,
But once you know your worth, you'll bend
For no one else, and never disguise.

Because living for their hate or praise
Is a cage you've built from fear,
But once you trust in your own ways,
You'll walk free, loud, and clear.

You are not the worst thing
that's ever happened to you.

You are the breath
after the breaking,
the hands that still reach
when no one claps.

Look at you-
still here.
That's art.

You lost things
that had names.

Dreams,
people,
parts of yourself
you'll never fully get back.

But you still open your chest
to the wind.
You still say yes.

And that-
that is holy.

We scroll past bombs
and birthday cakes,
same thumb, same blank face.
Someone dies,
someone dances,
and we just keep going.

We smile in filters,
cry in dark corners,
say "I'm fine"
with a voice that shakes.

We love in likes,
break hearts in silence,
chase meaning in memes
and call it connection.

The world spins on-
****** and blooming,
a garden grown from graves.
It's cruel.
It's gorgeous.
And somehow,
we're still here-
half broken, half trying.
all human.

dear little me,
the girl who cried quietly into pillows,
who thought the world would never open its fists-
you didn't know back then
that pain could make a home in your bones
and still let you dance sometimes.

some days we fly, some days we crawl.
but every day, we're still here.

you didn't know that growing up
meant breaking a hundred times
just to find the pieces worth keeping.

you learned to laugh with a crack in your voice,
to love people who didn't always stay.
some days felt like forever,
others slipped through your fingers like sand.

you still get angry.
you still cry in the dark sometimes,
but now you know it's not weakness-
it's the storm passing through.
and you?
you're the sky it never breaks.

we learned to love and lose,
to tell the difference
between a bruise and a wound that never healed.
we're still learning how to let the sadness go
without letting the anger take the wheel.

we're practicing how not to keep it all in,
how not to carry every wrong like it's ours.
still blaming ourselves for things
we were never meant to hold.

and we're still trying to be perfect-
whatever that means-
and god,
that's what makes it so hard to live.

maybe the future me will finally get it.
maybe she'll be free.

there are moments,
tiny golden seconds,
when the world is soft again-
a song, a smile, a sky that looks like home.
you made it to the memories part,
the messy beautiful ones.

i won't lie to you-
some of the pain stayed.
some days still feel too heavy to carry.
but look at us.
we kept walking.
even with scraped knees and tired hearts.

we're still here.
and one day, maybe,
the hurting won't be so loud.
maybe the light will stay longer.
maybe joy will feel like home, not a visitor.

until then,
i'll keep holding us together-
for you, for me,
for the girl who thought she'd never make it.