I don't want to die
I just need something to make me feel alive.

a secret im too scared to share with anyone
except random strangers on the internet:
i wish i had an eating disorder.
i would be sad
but at least i’d be skinny.

im sorry.
i really am.

i don’t know what i’m supposed to do
with a body that doesn’t feel like mine,
always too much, always too little,
but never just right.

i cut away pieces of myself
yet i’m still too much.
it feels wrong, always wrong.
i look and see nothing but flaws
clinging to my skin like it’s suffocating,
i hate it for just existing.

i look at my reflection and feel disgusting,
a canvas of mistakes
that i can’t seem to wipe away,
no matter how hard i try.

i don’t write about it.
the music, the endless rehearsals,
the way the saxophone feels in my hands
like it’s breathing with me.
i don’t write about the late nights,
the competitions, the friendships forged
in the chaos of scales and solos.
instead, i let it live in the spaces
between my words,
where the sound lingers,
but i never let it spill onto the page.

maybe it’s because i’m scared.
scared i’ll sound like a nerd,
or that you will underestimate my potential,
or maybe that the music i love
will turn into something
i have to explain.
so i leave it unspoken,
a quiet symphony only i hear,
never written,
never shared.

i think i’m over it now.
not because i’ve stopped missing you,
but because i’ve learned how to carry it,
how to let the weight settle without sinking.

you are still there, in my dark, lonely moments,
in the way i am forever changed,
in the way i almost reach for my phone
before remembering there’s nothing left to say.

maybe i’ll always miss you,
but i think i can live with that.

i always know it’s getting bad
when i start chewing on the tie of my sweatshirt.
i think it’s called an
aglet,
but all i know is,
it’s fraying like
me.

Turns out they were right
all the glitter
is not always gold
that some truths are better not told
that bad things
are more complex
then we think
that truth are more complex
that not everything is black and gray
that truth can be twisted
I give up
nothing I can do
the truth is twisted
and hate to tell you
that the truth