You see me laughing, smiling,
like I’ve got it all together,
like the world is mine to hold.

But look closer,
beyond the light in my eyes,
past the easy words,
beneath the surface of this calm.

There’s a storm I don’t speak of,
a weight I carry alone,
moments I swallow
so no one has to see.

I’m tired of pretending,
but I wear the mask
because it’s easier
than explaining the cracks.

Now, pause for a second.
and ask yourself,
who around you
is wearing the same mask?

Who smiles for you,
while quietly breaking?

Because sometimes,
the strongest people
are the ones who feel the most.

So if you see a smile,
don’t just see the smile.
see the story waiting to be told.

And maybe,
just maybe,
reach out before it’s too late.

The best thing about a picture
is that it never changes,
even when the people in it do.

A smile caught,
a laugh paused,
a moment stolen
from a river that never stops flowing.

In that still frame,
we are forever young,
forever whole.
before time pulled us apart,
before the cracks showed,
before the silence grew.

It holds what we lost,
what we forgot to keep,
what faded
while we were busy changing.

The best thing about a picture
is that it never changes.
and in it,
A single frame
holding forever
what time refuses to keep.

Cancer doesn’t crash in
like a storm.
It seeps in.
Quiet.
Cruel.
Certain.

It starts with a phone call,
a strange tone in someone’s voice,
a word you never wanted to hear
said out loud in a room that
suddenly forgets how to breathe.

And from there,
the world splits.

The person you love
still smiles,
still says they’re fine.
but the light behind their eyes
flickers.
Their body becomes a battlefield
no one asked to fight on.

You watch them shrink
while trying to stay brave.
Trying to laugh through nausea.
Trying to hide pain
like it’s a gift
to keep you from worrying.

And it steals them
bit by bit.
hair,
weight,
strength,
hope.

It doesn’t care
if they were kind,
if they were needed.

It just takes.

And the worst part?
You can’t hate it out loud.
Can’t punch it.
Can’t reason with it.
Can’t make it stop.

All you can do
is hold their hand
until one day
you can’t.

And you’re left
with a silence
that screams.

Some mornings,
I catch myself in the mirror
and think,
maybe.
Maybe I look okay today.
Pretty, even.

But then a photo appears,
a tag,
a candid,
a frozen frame I didn’t choose.
And suddenly,
my smile feels crooked,
my face too round,
my eyes unsure of themselves.

I tilt my head,
try to see what others might,
but I never find it.
Not really.

My friends,
they shine like they were born to.
Like their beauty just exists
without effort.
I stand beside them
and shrink.
Even on my best days,
I feel like the shadow
in someone else’s light.

And it hurts.
To want to feel beautiful
and never fully get there.
To wonder if I’m the only one
who sees this stranger in my skin.
If maybe I’m just broken
in how I see myself.

I wish I could borrow your eyes
just for a second—
to know if the ugly I see
is real,
or just something I’ve learned
to believe.

Because I want to feel
what they say I am.
Not just sometimes.
Not just almost.

But truly.

I fear the end
more than I show.
Not the darkness,
but the silence
that follows.
The idea that one day,
the sun will rise
and I won’t.

So I savor things
too much.
The way light filters
through morning blinds.
The laugh I wasn’t expecting.
The song that hits
just right.
I notice everything,
because I’m scared
it could be the last time
I do.

I hold people longer.
Say “I love you” more.
Take photos of nothing
just to prove I was here,
that this happened,
that I lived.

Sometimes,
the fear keeps me up.
Other times,
it pushes me to dance
in the middle of my room
at 1 a.m.
like I’ve got forever.

I want to live
like it matters.
Because it does.
Even if no one remembers.
Even if the ending
is quiet.

I'm not ready to go.
So while I’m here.
I’ll hold tighter,
breathe deeper,
and love like it’s
the only thing
that makes us
immortal.

My mind doesn’t whisper,
it loops.
Spins circles out of silence,
makes meaning from a glance,
a pause,
a word
that maybe meant nothing at all.

I replay conversations
like they’re evidence.
Did I say too much?
Not enough?
Did they mean what I think they meant—
or am I just making storms
out of weather that passed?

I overanalyze the smile I gave,
the message I sent,
the second it took them to reply.
I measure worth
in milliseconds,
build whole tragedies
from tiny moments.

People say,
“Just stop thinking about it.”
Like that’s something
I haven’t already begged my brain
a thousand times to do.

I want peace.
But my peace
comes “what ifs,”
with echoes of things
no one else remembers
but me.

It's exhausting,
to feel everything
twice.
once when it happens,
and then forever after
in my head.

I do things
before my thoughts can catch them.
Say yes
before the question’s finished.
Cut my hair at midnight,
text what I shouldn’t,
leave when I should stay
and stay when I should run.

I chase feelings
like fireflies,
even when they burn.
Jump in deep
without checking
if I can swim.
I live in now.
Only now.
Because tomorrow always feels
too far,
too fake.

It’s not always brave.
Sometimes it’s messy.
Sometimes it’s regret
knocking at 3 a.m.
with a list of everything
I should’ve done
differently.

But in the chaos
there’s truth.
In the sparks,
there’s life.

I don’t always get it right.
I rarely get it calm.
But I get it real.

I never think twice.
And somehow,
that’s where I feel most like
myself.