I smiled so wide my molars got jealous.
Everyone said I looked stunning.
I said thank you in the voice I reserve for customer service and playing dumb.
That’s the closest I’ve come to a scream
this week.

I wore the dress that says: I’m over it.
(It lies.)
I walked like a question mark
straightened out with rage.

There was a man in the corner
making balloon animals.
He asked what I wanted.
I said surprise me.
He handed me a noose
shaped like a swan.

No one noticed.
Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself
to feel interesting.

Later, someone told a joke
I didn’t get.
I laughed like I was being watched.

The punchline wasn’t funny.
It just echoed
like something I would’ve said
before I got careful.

I stood in the kitchen
with a paper plate of olives and nothing,
holding it like proof
I was doing fine.

Someone spilled wine on the couch.
I said I’ve ruined better things.
Everyone laughed
like I meant it to be charming.
(I didn’t.)

A girl in white heels asked me
how I knew the host.
I said same way I know most people—
by accident,
and with the kind of premonition that wears perfume.

The bathroom mirror was cracked.
I counted the breaks like confessions
and chose not to atone.
The soap smelled like fruit
that only exists in dreams
you wake up crying from.

I reapplied my lip stain
like armor,
like alibi,
like an exit strategy.

Then I left without saying goodbye
because I couldn’t figure out
how to do it quietly
and still be missed.

I was born mid-eye-roll,
c-sectioned from a punchline.
First words were don’t start with me,
second were fine, stay.

My spine’s in italics.
I bend for no one
but poetry
and panic.

I talk in skip-steps.
I cry in parentheses.
I kiss like a loophole.
He said you’re hard to read,
so I wrote myself louder.

Time doesn’t pass here,
it tantrums.
I clock in and out of myself hourly.

My skin’s on backward.
My hunger has subtitles.
My ghost writes sonnets in the steam on the mirror
and signs them:
Almost.

I invented a verb that means
to leave someone before they prove they would’ve.
I use it daily.
It conjugates into silence.
It rhymes with obviously.

The doctors say it’s chronic.
Pre-traumatic glow disorder.
I blush before the pain hits.
I glitter out of spite.

Don’t ask if I’m okay.
Ask which version of me is answering.
Ask if I remembered to name my wounds
before dressing them up like confetti.

My mouth is a magpie.
I collect syllables like shiny things
and scream them into soup.

Alphabet in disarray.
Syntax on fire.
Verbs wearing fishnets.

I said please but it came out pyre.
I said love but it burned at both ends
and tasted like lightning bugs
smothered in saran wrap.

This isn’t poetry.
It’s a word riot.
A sentence rebellion.
A grammar glitch in God’s inbox.

I built a language out of side-eyes and stutters,
called it flinchlish.
Conjugated heartbreak like it was Spanish.
(I hurt, you hurt, we—
don’t talk about that anymore.)

Sometimes I write elegies in emojis.
Sometimes I tongue-twist psalms into punchlines.
Sometimes I just scream into Google Docs
until it autocorrects sorry to spine.

My voice is a thesaurus
spun too fast in a washing machine.
Everything comes out wrinkled,
wet,
a little more
mine.

Everything is too
sugar-spine, salt-lipped,
staticstitched and jitterglow.

I can’t sit still
without turning into
a girl-shaped emergency.

I keep my synonyms in jars—
one for ache,
one for almost,
one for the word I made up
that means I miss you so much I become a faucet.

Language is a loose tooth.
I tongue it until it bleeds metaphor.
Call it poetry.
Call it coping.
Call it anything but what it is:
me, peeling the world into vowels
because I’m scared if I say what I mean,
you’ll hear it.

And then what?

You’ll answer?

You’ll echo?

You’ll send a voice memo
saying same
and I’ll combust on the Q train
like a well-read matchbook?

God, I am so
caption-core,
pun-drunk,
rhyme-accident-prone.
I named my stomach pit afterthought.
I named my wrists reminder.

And I named you
don’t.

But I still say it
every time I open my mouth
to speak.

Verse1
I did a juice cleanse the week you went cold
Felt holy, felt haunted, felt thirty-three years old
Kept waiting for hunger but all I felt was rage
Posted poems about birds while I rotted offstage

Lit sage in the kitchen, wore pearls in the bath
Pretended that healing could change what we had
Went dancing on rooftops, then puked in the sink,
then stared in the mirror and tried not to think.

Pre-chorus1
They’ll say I was crazy, dramatic, obsessed
But they didn’t see what you did in that text

Chorus1:
I would’ve stayed through the plot twists and power cuts
Learned your silence, memorized your worst months
Now I sleep like a crime scene, replaying the call
Where you almost said “love you,” then said nothing at all

You said, “Don’t write about me”—I already did
In lipstick and blood and the back of my ribs
You were never safe, but you felt like home
And I’d still pick the lock if I thought you were alone

Verse2
He said, “Don’t cry,” as he pulled off my shirt
And I laughed like that wasn’t the worst part
He said, “You like it when I ruin things”
I said, “Only because you started with me.”

I knew it was bad when I liked how you lie
How your mouth made disasters sound holy and high
You said I romanticize pain till it purrs
I said, “You keep calling it love like it’s yours”

Prechorus2
You said I’m intense—like it wasn’t projection
Like I didn’t watch you detonate every connection

Bridge
You said you were broken, so I stayed and I sewed
You said you were scared, so I softened my glow
We were talking about movies, then death, then dreams
Then you said, “I think love just isn’t for me”

You told me I’m bright, then dimmed all the lights
Called me your mirror, then shattered the rights
Said I was heaven, then sent me to hell
And I still wrote it sweet just so you’d wish me well

Carved out your echo in bathroom tile
Kept praying you’d miss me, then smiled for a while
Still set all the clocks to your birthday at three,
Then swallowed a wish I forgot was for me.

CHORUS (FINAL)
I would’ve stayed through the fallout and frostbite
Sat through your silence like that made it right
Now I sleep like a witness, replaying the call
Where you almost said “love you,” then said nothing at all

You said, “Don’t write about me”—but look what you did
You live in the margins, the bloodstream, the script
You were never safe, but you felt like home
And I’d still pick the lock
Even knowing you're gone

Outro
I did a juice cleanse
And you never came back.
I never got better,
but I glow like I have.

He once told me
he wanted to die in a place
that looked like a poem.
I told him
I wanted to live
like I was one.

We were doomed by aesthetics—
too many soft glances,
not enough spine.
He held my wrist like a snow globe
but shook me too hard.

He said I was all feeling,
no logic.
As if logic ever begged anyone to stay.

Once,
he told me I reminded him
of a girl in a painting.
I should’ve asked
what happened to her
after the gallery closed.

I used to count his heartbeats
when he slept,
just to know something
inside him still worked.

I wore my prettiest dress
to the argument—
just in case
he needed reminding
that I’m not easy
to walk away from.

He looked at me
like a cliff he might leap from
or photograph.

I stopped saying his name
and started writing
in second person.
It still felt like calling him home.

Even now,
I write you into metaphors
so I can pretend
you were never real—
just a concept,
a cautionary tale,
a ghost that rhymed.

You wanted tragedy.
I wanted truth.
We got
whatever this was.

Verse 1
Took the wrong bus on a Wednesday
Wore the skirt I swore I hated
Had a blister and a sunburn
And the sky was drained and jaded

Sat by a woman with a bag of peaches
One rolled out and hit my shoe
She laughed like my aunt who died in April
And I almost said, “I miss you too”

Pre-Chorus 1
Joy didn’t knock, just drifted through—
Like a memory dressed in something new.

Chorus 1
I got sunburned in my silence
Skirt too short and pride too loud
Joy just slipped into the backseat
While I cursed at every cloud

I’m not healed, just unbothered
By the mess I’ve started to miss
I flinch at kindness lately
Like it’s something I can’t resist

Verse 2
The driver missed my stop completely
But I didn’t say a word
There’s a silence that feels sacred
When you’re scared of being heard

My phone lit up with nothing
And it still made me smile
I’m the patron saint of letdowns
But I stayed soft for a while

Pre-Chorus 2
Joy didn’t ask if I’d moved on
Just slipped back in like nothing was wrong

Chorus 2
I got sunburned in my silence
Skirt still short and ego bruised
Joy slid in like she owned the place
Like she knew I’d already lost the ruse

I’m not healed, just out of stories
So I smile and call it wise
Now I host my hauntings sweetly
Like the ghosts were always mine

Bridge
I practiced detachment like a prayer
Burned sage, lit candles, grew out my hair
But it still smelled like him in July—
Like sweat, and shame, and cherry pie

I told the moon, “I get it. You only show half,”
Then cried so hard I think I made God laugh

Mascara on my birth certificate
From rewriting who I was
Tried on forgiveness like a costume
But forgot what size I was

I kept rewriting the ending
’Til the story started biting back
Guess healing is just hiding
In a dress you thought you packed

Final Chorus
I got sunburned in my silence
Skirt still short, but now it fits
Joy returns like clockwork chaos
Pulls up laughing, never quits

I wasn’t healed, just hungry
For something I didn’t have to chase
And for once, I didn’t flinch
When the world looked me in the face

Outro
I told the moon, “I get it.”
But I was really talking to myself.