Tulips
Common, trusted, beloved.
Planted in gardens, gifted in joy,
Welcomed without a second thought.

And then—me.
Fragile, fleeting, misplaced.
Sought only in sorrow, left to wither,
A beauty seen too late,
A name too easily forgotten.

Lycoris Radiata.

I do not exist when I’m alone.
Not in any way that matters.
I move, I breathe, I think,
But it feels weightless, distant,
Like a story left open in an empty room,
Pages turning for no one.

Nothing is real until someone is there.
Until a glance, a word, a touch
Pulls me from the quiet.
Like I am only a reflection,
Flickering into being when seen,
Vanishing when the mirror stands empty.

Do I exist when no one is looking?
Or do I fade into the spaces between moments?
Drifting somewhere between thought and absence,
A pause too long, a whisper among the breeze,
A shadow with nothing to cast it.

And when I step back into the world,
I pull myself together with careful hands,
Wearing the shape they expect to see,
Smiling, speaking,
As if I had been whole all along.

Maybe that’s why I hold onto every word,
Every glance, every touch.
Because in those fleeting seconds,
I am seen.
I am something.
I exist.

I am the afterthought.
Not the friend they call just to talk,
Not the person they’re excited to see,
Not the thought that lingers when the room is empty.

Am I at least almost?
Almost important, almost wanted,
Close enough to matter,
But never enough to stay.

People care, in passing.
A kind word, a fleeting thought,
But never the one they miss,
Never the one they need.

I wonder what it’s like to be chosen,
To be the one someone can’t bear to lose.
But I am only here when it’s convenient,
A placeholder,
A second choice,
A name they forget until they need something.

It’s the little things that can weigh the most,
The quiet aches no one sees.
Waiting for a text that doesn’t come,
The way their laughter fades when they talk to someone else.
Someone you love moving away,
And you never told them how much they meant.

They seem so small,
But they linger,
Settling into corners of your mind like dust.
You tell yourself it’s nothing—
Not war, not famine, not tragedy.
But in your world, it feels like an earthquake,
Shaking the fragile ground beneath your feet.
The cracks it leaves are too small for others to notice,
But wide enough to trip you when you try to stand.

“You’re overreacting,” they say.
“It’s not a big deal.”
But how can they know?
It’s your world that’s crumbling,
Your heart that’s already too heavy for something so light.

And maybe they’ll never see it.
The way those tiny splinters pierce the softest parts of you,
The way they bleed in silence while you smile.
It doesn’t shatter like glass,
It erodes like stone,
A slow, quiet unraveling of the person you used to be.

Losing someone you never even dated is a different kind of Heartbreak.
You pour your emotions,
Your quiet hopes, into a connection that never fully existed outside of your Mind.

Every Smile,
Every Glance, becomes something you overanalyze.
Searching for a sign, a spark.
Something that might prove she felt it too.
But most days, it's like standing in the shadows.
Watching her move through life without ever really seeing you.

Stuck in this in-between,
Too much for just friends,
Somehow not enough for anything more.
And that Stings.
Wondering if she ever saw what you felt.
If she ever noticed your quiet affection or your subtle longing.

Unrequited love doesn't fade,
It buries itself deep, waiting in some quiet corner of your heart.
Still Aching.
And sometimes we wait too long for the love we deserved all along.
Forgetting that our worth is never tied to someone else recognition of it.

But you can never forget the weight of love unspoken,
A story that never began yet still feels irrepairably broken.

The strongest people are often the quietest,
Their shoulders broad enough to bear the weight of the world.
They listen when others crumble,
Piecing together broken hearts with steady hands.
Their words soothe,
Their presence steadies,
And their silence feels like a refuge.

But when their own walls begin to crack,
When the weight they carry grows too heavy,
Their voices falter.
Soft cries for help,
Eclipsed by the noise of lives they once held together.
Their pain fades into the background,
A whisper swallowed by the chaos of others.

They are seen as unshakable,
An unyielding constant in a storm.
But even the tallest trees sway,
Even the strongest pillars crack under strain.

Still, they stand,
Hoping someone will notice the way they lean,
Hoping someone will hear the faint echoes of their ache.
But most days,
Their own needs dissolve into the shadows,
Invisible in the light they give to others.

And in the stillness of their loneliness,
They wonder if anyone will ever listen
The way they have listened all along.