i hide the cuts
and call it healing.
i smile enough
to look like feeling.

i bled to feel,
then felt too much.
so now i flinch
at even touch.

no big event,
no cry for aid.
just pain, then choice,
then steel, then blade.

the scars are thin,
but memory lingers.
i still see red
between my fingers.

they call it pain,
i call it mine.
i earned the blood,
i crossed the line.

there’s a kind of sorrow
that sits beside me,
quiet, tired,
like an old friend.

some evenings,
when the light turns gold
and your voice
drifts through the silence,
i almost forget
i was ever hurting.

i wish lexapro made me feel better.
or at least numb.
anything but this hurt.

i like to believe that everything happens for a reason.
not in a way that makes sense,
not in a way that makes anything okay.

i don’t believe it when bad things happen to other people.
but when they happen to me,
i need to.

i don’t ask for proof.
i just ask to get through it.

maybe it’s just a story i tell myself
so i don’t fall apart.

but some days,
that story
is all i’ve got.

i don’t know when it started.
maybe last week.
maybe yesterday.
maybe five minutes ago.

i still smile.
i still say “i’m fine.”
i still text back,
but i don’t want to explain.
i don’t know how.

i think i’m tired
of trying to sound like a person.

his name still lights up my phone.
but i still feel sad,
or maybe too much,
or maybe just wrong.

i’ve gone blurry.
and everything hurts
in a strange, quiet way
i can’t really name.

i miss feeling real.
i miss wanting to talk.
i miss the part of me
that didn’t feel so far away.

and i don’t want to ruin anything.
but everything already feels ruined.
and i don’t know what to do with that.