i was meant for greater things
not to be folded into the quiet corners of other people’s comfort,
not to wear the smallness they hand me like a gift i should be grateful for.
the world has tried to carve me down to fit its narrow shelves,
but there is something in me that will not be contained,
a fire that remembers its own light even in the dark.

i have walked through rooms where silence was expected,
where ambition was called arrogance,
where the weight in my chest was mistaken for burden instead of purpose.
still, i carry it
this unshakable knowing that my hands were meant
to shape more than what they’ve been given,
that my voice was meant to reach further than the walls in front of me.

it is not greed to want the sky when you were born with wings.
it is not rebellion to refuse the chains that were never yours to wear.
to be anything less than what i am meant to become
would be a slow kind of dying
the kind you don’t notice until you wake one day
and find your name has been forgotten
even by your own reflection.

i’m tired of the facades. so if you’re going to step through the door again, bring all of you or bring nothing. let’s stop the polite distance. if you don’t come home, then tell me straight because walls build themselves against silence and i’m done with building.

nothing fills the void you left.
it isn’t a hollow anymore
it’s a living thing,
breathing in my chest,
growing through the hours like roots
that split the walls of my days apart.

i tell myself to move forward.
i tell myself it’s what you’d want.
but the truth is,
i don’t think you’d recognise me now.
i’m not the same shape i was
when you were still here.
pieces have been carved out.
others have rotted.
there’s nothing to rebuild from.

maybe it’s not replacing you
maybe it’s missing you in ways so deep
i’ll never reach the bottom.
your face catches me off guard
in reflections that aren’t yours.
your voice lingers in the spaces
between passing cars and half-closed doors.
and your smell
it’s in the air before the rain,
in the clothes i can’t bring myself to wash,
in the rooms i avoid at night.

the absence doesn’t just sit quietly
it claws at the edges of everything.
it pulls me back from laughter,
as if joy were a betrayal.
it whispers that i’ll never have
anything untouched by you again.

i try to fill the silence
music, strangers, late-night walks
but it all collapses,
falling through the same hole
that’s been carved into me.
like pouring oceans into a cracked cup.

the world didn’t stop for you.
the sun still comes up,
cars still pass my window,
people still ask about the weather.
and i hate them for it
for not noticing the earth is smaller now,
lighter, emptier.

no one else is carrying the funeral.
just me.
and i am so, so tired.

worldly pleasures are for worldly beings
but you were never meant to stay
resist the pull of passing things
be better, even if it aches to turn away

we light candles for strangers
mourn wars we’ll never see
and scroll past the quiet collapse in the room beside us

the ache that doesn’t scream becomes wallpaper
the tears that fall too often become weather

but god, isn’t it strange how we cradle the pain of the world like a fragile bird, while stepping over the broken wing at our doorstep?

we build with trembling hands
convinced that care alone will keep things whole

we think if we love right
soft, honest, and quiet
that it’ll stay

but nothing lasts forever

even the sun, loved by every leaf
eventually leaves the sky