it’s totally okay to go to bed a little hungry

i tell myself

i wish the air smelled
like summer did four years ago.
chlorine and asphalt after rain,
sunburnt skin and something sweet.

i spend each winter
longing for those days.
but when summer comes,
it never quite fits right,
like a song i used to love
but can’t remember the lyrics to.

my summers are okay now
but they feel like echoes,
fading, distant,
never loud enough
to drown out the missing.

i wait for my sister’s breath to steady,
for dreams to pull her far from me—
because i can’t let her see this,
can’t let her know
that i am not whole.

im fighting a battle im destined to lose
this fight was never mine to win
next **** up, and im dead
but it’ll be by my own hands

feeling like you’ll always be stuck in your own head
forcing yourself to act normal when you feel anything but
waking up exhausted no matter how much you sleep
seeing people move on without you and wondering if they even noticed
feeling guilty for being sad when you “should” be happy
thinking no one would understand, so you don’t even try to explain
not knowing if you actually want help or if you just want to disappear for a while
the fear that maybe this is just who you are now

maybe it is the end of the world?