I used to write gently.
Let the metaphor bloom
before I buried the body,
then buried the lede.
Let language unravel
like stolen ribbon—
then strangle the scene
it slipped from.

I used to offer softness
like it wouldn’t run out.
Let your cruelty masquerade
as clumsiness.
softened your edges
with my own skin.

I won’t stitch myself smaller
for men who call me complex
while collapsing under complexes—
then call me poetic,
like that’s the point.

You said,
“That’s not what I meant.”
I said,
“I know.”
And dragged the line
like a corpse
through the ******.

Framed the silence
in gold leaf
and gall.
Made you a myth—
then fed you to it.

You said,
“The right thing is to walk away.”
So I followed you
into the poem
and made sure
you never left.

You wanted a loophole.
I wrote you scripture.
You wanted soft closure.
I carved your apology
into a tombstone—
your smile etched wrong,
your teeth too sharp
even for fiction.

They never looked kind.
They never were.

Don’t ask
why my version hurts more.
Ask why yours
never held up—
until I told it
wrong
on purpose.

I was supposed to be somewhere holy by now.
Twenty-eight, maybe.
Soft-eyed, loose-shouldered,
eating cherries on a porch that faces west,
“I trust the sky not to drop me.”
“I haven’t wished on a coin in months.”
Instead, I’m awake at 3:47 a.m.
Googling “What does it mean to feel inside-out?”

I keep finding pieces of myself
in weird places—
a sandal from eighth grade
in my mom’s basement—
a song I skipped for years
until it wrecked me—
now it’s the only sound I can breathe to.
A fourth grade diary entry
that ends with:
“I think something’s wrong with the air.”

I think something’s wrong with the air.

I was so sure by now I’d
quit making altars out of absence,
retire from bleeding for the line break,
know how to hold still when people love me.

I thought I’d hear God more clearly
and panic less when I don’t.
I thought I’d be done
being undone
by
a read receipt.

/ Then the break. /

And yet.

I flinch at compliments
like they’re coming from behind me.

Sometimes I still check
if my name’s spelled right on things.
I still rehearse
what I’ll say in case I’m asked,
“So, what do you do?”

(I become.
I break and unbreak.
I drink soda in bed and call that healing.
I make it to morning and call that enough.)
I keep living like the soft things won’t leave.

There’s a version of me
who doesn’t bend into a wishbone
for every boy with a god complex—
and a version
who flosses because she thinks she’ll live
long enough
for it to matter.

There’s a version who never had to explain
the scars on her thigh.
A version who didn’t stay
just to see how bad it could get.

I keep dreaming of her.
Not to compete—
just to confess.
Not to ask forgiveness—
to give it.

She sleeps through the night and means it.
She makes plans and keeps them.
She doesn’t exist.

So I just keep writing toward something
I’m not sure I’ll survive.
There’s a version of me
who didn’t touch the red button.
Didn’t ask.
Didn’t hope.
Didn’t write any of this down.

(a poem in six stained glass windows)

I. BECOMING

I used to flinch when someone said
“You’re gonna be big someday,”
like—how big?
How loud?
How lonely?
How much of me
do I have to lose
to be loved that widely?

I kissed a boy once
just to see if I could still feel small.
I could.
then I wrote about it,
rhymed tongue with undone,
called it healing.

Some nights I Google myself
with the same hunger
you search a symptom.
Just hoping it’s not fatal.
Just hoping it is.
Just hoping there’s finally
a name for it.

My digital footprint is a shrine
to girls I outgrew but never buried,
their teenage poems
still written in Sharpie
on the back of my ribs.

My first book will ship with
a hand strung bracelet that says
“I survived myself.”

II. PERFORMING

Every time I tell the story
I’m a little more clever,
a little less heartbroken,
a little more
dangerous,
a little more wrong.

I have a bad habit
of leaving confessions in comment sections—
breadcrumbs on the internet floor,
for anyone sad enough
to mistake me
for a map.

I used to rehearse goodbyes in mirrors,
just to see if my eyes could lie
as well as my mouth did.
They could.
They still can.

They called me brave
for saying it out loud.
But I only said it
because the silence was louder.

The secret to staying soft
is deleting the parts
where I’m anything else.

I write best in hotel rooms
because they feel borrowed, too—
because no one expects
the towels to stay white
or the girl to stay quiet.

III. DISGUISING

“SENSITIVE” was printed on my sweatshirt
the night he told me
I hurt myself through him—
at least now he can’t say
I never gave a trigger warning.

Half of my closet is clearance rack chaos,
the other half is second-hand salvation—
each hanger a theory
of who I’ll be next.
Sometimes I dress like the version of me
I think he could’ve stayed for.

Every good body day feels like a plot twist,
like God gave me
a guest pass
to precious.

He said I was too much,
but whispered it like praise.
Now I underline his fears
in neon.

Some nights I still wake at 3:14
to texts I dreamt he sent—
all apologies
and no punctuation.

I screenshot compliments
like they’re prescriptions,
take two every six hours,
pray my body doesn’t reject them.
One day, I’ll ask the pharmacy
if they carry praise
in extended-release.

Every dress in my closet whispers
“wear me to his funeral,”
but he keeps refusing to die,
so I just overdress for brunch—
and sit facing the door
just in case.

IV. SEARCHING

I footnoted the grief.
Added asterisks to all my ‘I’m fine’s.'
Even my browser history
reads like a ******* fire.

My greatest fear isn’t that I’ll fail—
it’s that someday I’ll win
and realize the trophy feels
exactly like loneliness,
but heavier.

I read horoscopes for signs of relapse,
Googling “Do Libras experience nostalgia?”
at 5:15 a.m. like a drunk astrologer
pleading with the stars
to cut me off.

I used to edit Wikipedia pages
for characters who reminded me of myself,
changing their endings to
“she survives,”
“she gets out,”
“she burns the diary.”
They banned my IP
for excessive optimism.
I took it as a compliment.

V. RECKONING

The girls who follow me online
all think I have answers.
I don’t.
I have questions in fancy fonts
and delusions of grandeur
dressed as advice.

My therapist asks me to describe “progress,”
and I show her unsent messages,
leftover pills,
and a notebook filled with
poems written in my sleep—
and one that woke me up
Screaming.

Some of you highlight my breakdowns
like they’re quotes.
I get it.
I do it too.

VI. ALONE

My brain is a group chat
of all the selves I've ghosted,
texting in all caps
and sending GIFs that scream,
"Remember when you thought you'd be happy by now?"

If this poem goes viral,
tell them I made it big.
Tell them I got loud.
Tell them I wasn’t lonely.
Just alone
by design.
Like all cathedrals are.

He said I always make things worse.

I traced our last conversation
inside my lip with my tongue,
until it burned like citrus.

My teeth still taste like that night—
miso soup, metallic coffee, a dare—
and the word “almost” said until it split.

I don’t start the fires—
I just know how to fan them
so the smoke spells mine,
so the ashes spell proof.

“You’re welcome for the mirror,” I said,
then, “You flinched first,”
like scripture I was tired of reciting.

He called me a problem
and then prayed for something exciting.
Well, God listens.
And she’s been on my side lately.
(And sometimes inside me.
And sometimes wearing red.)

You say I write like it’s a weapon.
But you brought a sword to my poem.
You heard me speak—and called it war.

I’m not the plot twist.
I’m the motif.
I’m the whisper that keeps showing up
even when you don’t name it.
Especially when you don’t name it.

You wanted a girl who could break
without getting any on your shoes.
Who called it miscommunication
when it was a massacre.
I called it Thursday.

I made you feel.
You made it a crime scene.
Now every sentence tastes like sirens.
But sure—blame me
for the blood in your mouth
when you kissed me wrong.

So yeah—
maybe I do make things worse.
But worse is where the story gets good.
Where you start reading slower.
Where your hands start shaking.

It’s not that I ruin things.
I just ask questions
that don’t look good in daylight.

It’s not that I mean to wreck things.
I just don’t know how to leave a room
without checking every exit
twice.

And labeling each one ‘almost.’

You ever love someone
so hard you forget to be charming?
Me neither.

He thought he was the mystery.
I’m the red string
and the corkboard
and the girl in the basement
with the map of everything that never happened.

You didn’t fall for me.
You fell through me.
That’s not my fault.
It’s gravity.
Or girlhood.
Or God, laughing behind her hand.

Say it again. Slower. This time, with your hands in your pockets.

If I could’ve spoken English for just one day,
I wouldn’t have wasted time
asking for treats,
or walks,
or one last ride in the car—
window cracked, your hand on my chest
like a seatbelt you didn’t want to let go of.

I wouldn’t have said “I love you.”
You already knew that.

You felt it
in how I followed you from room to room
like your shadow had bones.
In the way I sighed
when you moved me off your spot on the bed
but I never left the room.

I would’ve used my one day
to say all the things
you never let yourself hear
from anyone else.
The things you needed someone to say
without flinching.

I would’ve said:

You don’t have to keep shrinking
just to fit in someone’s arms.

You deserve to take up space,
and time,
and seconds that stretch out
without needing to be earned.

I would’ve said:

You weren’t dramatic.
You were drowning
in a place that looked like air.

I saw it.
I stayed.

I would’ve said:

You’re better when you sleep.
You’re smarter when you sing.
You’re beautiful when you’re writing—
even when the words hurt.
Especially then.

You are allowed to be tired.
You are allowed to want things.
You are allowed to leave
before you’re pushed.

I would’ve told you:

I knew when the end was coming.
Not because my body gave out—
but because your voice did.

You started saying goodbye
in the pauses.
In the extra seconds it took to say my name.
In the way your hands shook
before they reached for me.

You got quieter,
not in volume—
but in hope.

And even then,
I wasn’t scared.
You made dying feel like
staying close
in a new way.

You said
“good girl,”
and I knew what it meant.

It meant thank you.
It meant I’m sorry.
It meant please stay longer—
but I’ll let you go if you have to.

And if I had one more sentence,
just one more word
before my voice disappeared again—

I wouldn’t make it poetic.

I’d say:

You were enough the whole time.
You just needed someone who knew it
before you asked.
I did. I always did.
I still do.

Then I’d press my head into your chest,
like I used to—
when the whole world felt too loud—

and I’d stay
until you believed it.

I left my phone in the fridge again.
Texted my dead friend by mistake.
The dream said turn left at the red door
but every door was mauve and melting.
I wore the wrong shoes
to the right breakdown.

God, I’m tired of being
the lesson in someone else’s flashback.
Of saying 'I’m fine'
like it’s a good thing.

Sometimes I bite a fingernail off
and flick it to the ground,
just to prove I was here,
just to pretend my DNA
is not a walking lie.

Sometimes I talk
to the dogs with TikTok accounts
like they’re holding something back.

Sometimes I rehearse my disappearances
in liminal spaces:
parking garages,
abandoned malls,
group chats I left on read.
Now I RSVP to nothing
and they still say
“you’ll be missed.”

I keep meaning to heal,
but the plot keeps thickening—
And my name—
God, my name—
it echoes like a spoiler
in a house that isn’t mine anymore.
A trivia fact
no one got right.

My memories keep getting
auto-corrected to get over it.
I don’t.
I alphabetize the wreckage.
I romanticize the ruin.
The rot is getting readable.

Anyway,
I’m late again.
Time got weird in the hallway.
I swear the mirror
was trying to warn me—
but I was too busy
checking if my under-eye bags
made me look exquisitely exhausted,
or just ordinary and old.

I wanted to scream  
but the hallway  
was practicing silence.  

I wanted to run,  
but the rug said stay  
and the mirror said  
be still  
and beautiful and
unavailable.

The mirror said:
this is what longing looks like
when it runs out of places to go.

So I stood there—
a half-wreck, half-reflection—
trying to decide
if disappearing quietly
still counts as survival.

Somewhere,
my phone is defrosting.
Somewhere,
the red door is waiting.

Somewhere,
my dead friend
is laughing
his ghost-laugh,
mouthing: same.

She was three-legged
and fourteen,
which meant
brave by default.

We slept
spine to spine
every night that last year.
My body curved to match
the curve of hers—
like if I molded myself
into her shape,
she’d stay
a little longer.

Some nights
I’d cry
facing the wall.
I didn't want to disrupt her dreams,
her twitching and yowling
like she was running very fast
and free.

Even with three legs.
Even with the shaking.
Even with whatever was happening
inside her chest
that I couldn’t see
but felt
like a countdown—
each wheeze like the tick
of something winding down.

I made her a collar-like friendship bracelet.
It was that first Eras summer,
where I’d stay up late
with grainy livestreams,
and she’d sleep on my pillows
with her eyes open.

I tied it on her
before I knew
what I was preparing for—
red and magenta seed beads,
silver letters:
Roxy’s Version,
around her neck.

I wanted her
to have something
from me,
in case she got asked
who loved her
at the gate.

I wanted the answer
to be
obvious.

We brought her outside
so she could lie
in the dry, scratchy grass.
I laid leopard-print foam pillows
under her head.

I couldn’t stop the dying,
but I could
soften
the ground.
She rested like it was vacation.
Like we weren’t
practicing goodbye.

There’s a battered, rose-gold statue
of a Labrador, ten inches tall,
on our front step.
I spray-painted it years ago—
not knowing
I was making a witness.
The vet looked at it,
then followed us in.

We didn’t speak.
Just walked inside
like it was church,
like someone had already died.

And we sat on the couch—
her head in my lap.
Their voices:
soft, reverent.

I held her ear
between *******,
like it still led somewhere.

I told her
she was a good girl.
I wish I’d told her
she didn’t have to be.

I said,
“I love you.”
But what I meant was,
“Please stay.”
And what I thought was—
what if she wanted
just one more
terrible Tuesday?

What if the birds
were doing something today
that she needed to see?
What if the pain
wasn’t worse
than leaving?

I forgave her body
for failing.
But I still haven’t
forgiven the clock.

I’ve let whole seasons
happen
without telling her
how sorry
I still am.

From the upstairs window,
I watched them
carry her to their van
on a blue stretcher—
small,
almost toy-like.

I laughed when I saw it.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was all
too real,
too stupid,
too soft—
and I didn’t know
where to put the pain.

I watched my mom
and stepdad
hug in the driveway
like they were trying
to keep each other standing.

I hope she knows
I didn’t want
the last thing she saw
to be my tears,
so I gave her the sun.

I don’t know
if I said “I love you” out loud
while her breath
slowed.

She’s at peace.
But I’m still here—
crying in rooms
she used to follow me into.

I hope she knows
I keep her beads
near my bed.
I still wear it
some nights,
when I’m spine to spine
with nothing—
and it’s unbearable.

I hope she knows
she’s the reason
I ever believed
in unconditional anything.

I hope she knows
I made her a bracelet
before I made her a grave.

From a dog
who never asked me
to be perfect,
I still wait
for forgiveness.

I try to be good
for someone who always
believed I was.

She’d say,
“You did your best.”
And I’d say,
“I tried.”
I just wish
love didn’t hurt this much
when it ends
gently.