we didn’t start as friends—
you were too much like me,
a mirror i didn’t want to face.
but somewhere between second grade
and the secret worlds we built,
you became the only person
i never had to explain myself to.

years passed like waves;
distance came with the tide.
i found new circles,
but no one else could hold
the weight of my childhood
the way you do.

you’re my always.
the friend who never leaves,
even when we don’t speak for weeks.
our unspeakable vow,
etched in the laughter of simpler days.
and when the world feels too much,
it’s you i find waiting,
like a light i’ll never lose.

there’s a guilt i can’t explain,
an ache without a name,
like i’m sorry for something
i never became.

of all the people i’ve learned to disappoint,
none have been as cruel as me.
a jury of one, gavel in hand,
i recite my faults like scripture.

i live in a house i’ve built of mirrors—
every reflection a version i loathe.
the walls don’t crack,
but i do,
trying to escape the frame.

even my shadow turns its back.

there’s a quiet kind of grief
in wanting to scream but choosing silence,
in driving nowhere just to feel the road
pull you back into your body.

some days, my reflection feels like a stranger,
a ghost of who i thought i’d become.
other days, i’m just tired—
of waiting for apologies
that won’t come,
of remembering things that didn’t end right,
of waking up hoping
it might feel different.

there’s a heaviness in holding on
to people who’ve already let you go,
a hollowness in pretending
you don’t feel the gap
where they used to be.
but even in the absence,
you play their songs like prayers—
a melody to make the pain
feel like it belongs to someone else.

i don’t think i understand the point of love.
it always leaves me hurt—
empty, sad, hollow.
yet, i still keep falling,
as if the crash
will one day
feel like flying.

you were never mine,
but god, i wanted you to be.
i wanted to bottle your laugh,
to trace the edges of your grin
like it held the answer
to everything i’ve been missing.

you, with your effortless charm,
your easy way of lighting up the dark.
i was just someone standing too close,
trying to catch the glow.

we were nothing,
and yet, i keep replaying
the moments we almost were.
your voice still echoes in my mind,
a melody i’ll never get to finish.

you are gone now,
and i’ve learned to live
in the absence of your warmth,
but every now and then,
i feel the ghost of you—
and it almost feels like love.

he told me his sister tried to die,
and i sat there, silent,
holding my own secret like a stone
in my throat,
wishing i could tell him
but terrified he’d hate me for it.

he’s not broken like me,
so i hide my cracks—
afraid he’ll see the light
slipping through.

you know, we never meant
for taylor swift’s “daylight”
to become our song,
but it did.
first, it was your golden brown eyes,
then every lyric felt like us.
i guess it’s not ours anymore—
now, it’s yours and hers.
but i can’t help thinking,
we had it first.

i told her,
“it’s not an eating disorder,
it’s just how i feel.”

but how do i explain
the emptiness that fills me
when i skip a meal,
or the way my stomach twists
like it knows i haven’t earned the right
to be full?

i told her,
“it’s just how i feel,”
but deep down,
i wonder if feelings
can ruin you too.

i wear the grades like a mask,
convincing everyone but myself.
even in the things i love,
it feels like someone else’s hands
are moving through me,
creating things i don’t deserve.

when will they notice?
when will i?

something is wrong with me—
i’ve taken more naps in the past five days
than i’ve taken in the past five years.
it feels like my body is trying to stop time,
but the clock keeps ticking anyway.

yesterday, i visited the trainer before swim practice,
shivering in just my suit,
she pushed and prodded,
trying to determine what was wrong with my shoulder.

“lift your arms,” she said,
and as i did,
i noticed her eyes catch the scars.
she looked at me,
then at my arms,
and back again.

today, during class, the phone rang.
i prayed it wasn’t for me.
when my teacher handed me a pass,
my nightmare began:
visit guidance after class.

heart pounding, i stood outside the door,
and kept walking.
how could i explain
that i’m not trying to die—
i just don’t know another way
to carry the weight of living?

tomorrow is coming,
but i don’t know what it holds,
and i’m terrified.

you texted me today
asking me how i’ve been
i didn’t have the heart to tell you
that i’m drowning in a sea of thought
crushed beneath the pressure and pain
so i told you i’m good
(as if my arms aren’t littered with scars)
how are you?

dear alex,

i miss you.
not in the way i used to—not the quiet crush
i carried like a secret in my pocket.
you never knew, and i guess that’s okay.
i’m over it now.
but i miss your jokes, the way class felt lighter
when you were there.
without you, the silence feels too heavy,
and i keep glancing at your old seat
like the echoes of your laugh might still be there.
but now somebody else takes it up,
somebody who can’t fill your shoes.

sometimes i think
maybe in another life,
you would’ve liked me back.
or maybe we’d just be closer friends,
and i wouldn’t have to miss you like this.
but here we are, and you’re gone,
and i’m left missing the way
you made every moment
feel a little more alive.

good luck in college,
lizie

it’s my body that bears the proof,
a shoulder torn by the thing i adore.
the water calls me, and i answer,
though it leaves me aching to the core.

isn’t this the way of it?
the things we love demand their price.
a bicep strained, a heart undone,
each lap of joy, a sacrifice.

but i keep coming back,
to the pool, to the pain, to the hope.
even when it hurts, it’s worth it—
a lesson etched in every stroke.

i told the moon my secrets,
but she turned away.
even the sky,
it seems,
cannot bear the weight of me.

i’m sorry

i think there’s something wrong with me
because christmas is coming,
and i’m still not happy.

christmas is coming,
and i’m supposed to feel something—
but i don’t.

is it my fault the lights
don’t shine like they used to?

i beg the season to save me,
clinging to the hope
that maybe everything will feel okay again.

but christmas is coming,
and it doesn’t feel like it’s for me.
it’s for the ones who believe,
the ones who don’t cry when the snow falls.

i don’t want to feel this way,
but i can’t remember how not to.

it’s midnight
i’m drinking hot chocolate
(do you remember?)
and im wondering if things will ever be okay again

you already know how i wish i was a kid again
but then i wouldn’t have met you
so i’ll just sip on my hot chocolate
and think about life with you

sometimes im having a good day
and then i remember
and i remember
and remember

do you remember?
what about our midnight hot chocolate?
or did you forget that?
and did you forget me, too?

i’m not doing well
will someone lend me a word that doesn’t ache?
something simple, something true—
a word to feel whole, just for a moment

i am the only one who knows how quietly i am disappearing

when he speaks, i think the world falls silent
and in the stillness, i hear a thousand stories unravel.
his golden gaze, like dusk falling over a quiet lake,
leaves ripples where words would never fit.

i could’ve reached for his hand,
but in that space between us,
there was a kind of love that needs no touch,
a language built from everything unsaid.

his smile holds the quiet of a thousand mornings,
each one beginning but never lasting,
each glance a promise of a world unspoken,
where our hearts dance together, yet remain apart.

and i wonder, if i keep listening,
will the silence speak louder than my words?
or will it be the last thing i ever hear,
the echo of a love we never named?

you don’t notice the sun
until it slips below the horizon,
taking warmth and light
to some other corner of the world.

you don’t hear the clock
until the room falls silent,
each tick louder than
the love you took for granted.

you don’t see the magic of childhood
until you’re looking back,
realizing the world was perfect once,
and you didn’t even know.

you don’t feel the weight of silence
until their voice is gone,
the words they don’t say
echoing louder than the ones they did.

you don’t know what you’ve got
until it’s nothing but a memory,
a ghost you can’t outrun,
a lesson learned too late.

you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

i don’t know what to write about if it’s not about you

this boy gave me tic tacs in fourth grade,
his kindness was small and orange,
wrapped in a plastic rattle
i thought might mean something more.
he was every girl’s daydream,
but i didn’t mind sharing back then.

this boy was eighth grade’s laugh track,
a joke always waiting in the wings.
i thought i could keep him smiling forever,
even as i knew his heart wasn’t looking for mine.
still, i wanted to try.

this boy was tenth grade’s lesson in heartbreak.
he saw my body before he saw me,
his words cutting deeper than i knew words could.
i thought love meant shrinking
until there was less of me to hurt.

this boy was the maybe that never was.
he was so funny, so magnetic—
so not mine.
i watched him from the sidelines,
a story unwritten because
it already had a leading lady.

this boy was the almost that still stings.
we talked until my heart felt full,
until i thought i’d finally found the one
who might see all of me.
but some stories unravel
before you can tie them together.

this boy is now,
and now feels good.
it feels like laughter and warmth,
like someone who chooses me
without hesitation,
without conditions.
i don’t know how this story ends,
but for the first time,
i’m not afraid to turn the page.

i love the way snow transforms the world,
makes it cleaner,
brighter,
softer.
it wraps everything in a quiet that feels holy,
like the world is holding its breath
just to listen.

but even snow melts.
it retreats in patches,
revealing the grass,
the cracks in the pavement,
the things i tried to forget beneath the frost.

i think that’s what scares me.
the way beauty can vanish,
the way stillness fades,
how the cold that once felt comforting
can turn to mud in your hands.

nothing stays covered forever.
and maybe that’s the point—
to see what remains
when the snow is gone.

starting tomorrow,
everything will be okay.
not because the world will shift,
or because the storms will stop,
but because i said so.

i’ve whispered it into the cracks
of my breaking heart,
etched it into the sky
that feels too heavy to hold.

i don’t believe it yet,
not fully,
but maybe if i say it enough,
the weight will lighten,
the sun will stay a little longer,
and the darkness will lose its grip.

starting tomorrow,
i’ll keep saying it.
and maybe, one day,
it’ll be true.

she called me a ****,
as if the word could sink into my skin
and define the person i am.

but i am not that
(couldn’t be farther than that).
i long for what she can’t see—
a love that is honest,
a connection without walls,
a trust that doesn’t crumble
when the world’s gaze turns sharp.

her words aren’t true,
but they still found their mark,
like arrows tipped with shadows.
it hurts,
not because i believe her,
but because she believed
that tearing me down
was easier than understanding me.

i am not what she said.
i am someone
who loves deeply,
who craves meaning in a world
that so often refuses to give it.
she doesn’t know me,
but i know myself.
snd that has to be enough.

and yet, what hurts the most
is that she knows me.

you told me i’d be better off.
i told you i was fine.
we lied,
but i kept the silence warm,
kept your name pressed
into the back of my mind,
like a bruise i didn’t want to heal.

i carried the ghost of us,
let it haunt every corner,
let it seep into everything,
because forgetting felt like losing you twice.

but i’m done now.
this is the last poem i write for you,
the last time i dress my pain up
to make it look like love.
you and i are dead,
and i won’t keep trying
to breathe life into a grave.

you told me i’d be better off.
i told you i was fine.
we lied—
but now i’ll tell myself the truth.

it’s harder to exist when you feel like you’re just floating.
i tell myself i’m fine, but i’m not.
i’m tired of pretending i’m whole
when i’ve left pieces of myself
scattered in the people i loved
and now i can’t find them anymore.

i write, because i’m not sure who else to be.
i’m 16, but the weight of this world—
it feels heavier than it should be,
like a heart that’s growing old
before it even learns how to beat right.

i don’t feel enough.
not good enough, not strong enough,
not worthy of love, or kindness,
or the friendships i hold so tight
because i’m terrified to let go
even though the grip hurts.

it’s harder to exist when you feel like you’re just floating.
i tell myself i’m fine, but i’m not.
i’m tired of pretending i’m whole
when i’ve left pieces of myself
scattered in the people i loved
and now i can’t find them anymore.

i know, i should be better at letting go.
but how do you stop holding on
to the one person who once made you feel alive
when they’re the same one who now brings you to your knees?

they say time heals everything,
but i think time just buries things deeper.
i bury my emotions in my poetry,
where no one can see the cracks,
where i can pretend
i’m not drowning in my own words.

i’m learning to forgive,
but i still don’t know how to forget.
i give so much,
but it feels like no one gives enough back,
and i wonder if they can ever love me
the way i love them.

i’ve pushed people away
because i’m scared of them leaving first.
i’ve hurt others
because i didn’t know how to handle the mess inside me.
i’ve told lies to protect my heart
and made promises i can’t keep.
but i keep trying to make them feel heard
even when i’m screaming for someone to hear me.

i’m not perfect,
and i don’t expect anyone else to be either.
but how do i find peace in a world
where i’m always trying to make sense of things
that don’t make sense?

i want to be seen,
but not for who i think i am,
but for who i could be.
if i could be free,
if i could just be me,
i’d show you all the pieces i’ve been hiding,
the ones i thought were too broken to share.

but for now, i’ll write
and hope you hear me through these words.
i’ll hold on to the ones who love me
the way i want to be loved
and keep searching for the strength
to let go of the ones who won’t.

maybe one day i’ll find my place.
but until then, i’ll keep writing,
because it’s the only thing
that makes me feel whole.

i thought i was fine
until i saw you smile at her
it shouldn’t hurt
but it does.
i let go of you
long before you let go of me
and somehow
that makes it worse.

january met december in the folds of a fading year,
a moment stolen between frost-kissed whispers,
their breaths clouding in the air like secrets
too fragile to ever be spoken aloud.

“you feel like me,” january murmured,
“cold, distant, yet burning inside.
you know what it’s like to hold endings in your palms
and pretend they’re beginnings.”

“i know,” december sighed,
“and you—
you know how it feels to start over
when you’re not yet ready to let go.”

they danced on the edges of time,
two mirrors reflecting the same aching soul,
their closeness fleeting, their yearning endless,
bound by something stronger than love—
the cruel rhythm of the clock.

“stay,” january begged,
but december was already fading,
dragged backward by the relentless pull of the seasons.
“i would,” december whispered,
“if only time would let me.”

and so they parted,
leaving their longing scattered like snowflakes
on the bridge between years.

i think of him when i see january,
when i feel december slipping away.
we fit so perfectly, like the edges of a broken year,
but the world didn’t allow us to remain.

i miss him in the spaces where time can’t touch,
in the echoes of all the things we almost were.
like january and december,
i loved him in the quiet moments we stole—
and lost him to the hands of a clock
i couldn’t stop.

she saved me once,
when the world was too heavy,
when the summer stretched too long,
and i was ready to end it all.
she pulled me back,
her hand steady, her words soft,
and i clung to her like a lifeline.

but lifelines fray,
and so did she.
with every lie,
every whispered knife in my back,
she unraveled what we had.
i forgave her—again and again—
because i thought love was stronger than pain.

yet now i see,
she has woven herself into my heart,
into the things that make me whole,
and cutting her free
feels like tearing pieces of myself away.

how do you save yourself
from someone who once saved you?
how do you walk away
from the place where love and hurt
are tangled so tightly
you can’t tell them apart?

still, i know:
this isn’t living.
and if i stay,
i may not live at all.

it almost took her once.
the quiet visitor she never called,
the thought that slips in uninvited,
nestles in the corners of her mind,
and waits.

she carries it like a secret,
pressed deep into her aching chest,
a weight no one else can see.
some days, it whispers,
soft as falling leaves.
other days, it roars,
demanding its due.

she doesn’t want to leave,
no, not really.
but she wonders how much longer
she can bear the burden of staying,
if it is even worth it anymore.

they tell her it’s a choice.
they don’t see the fight.
the way her hands tremble
on the edge of surrender,
how her heart pleads
to keep beating.

she survives for now,
but the uninvited waits,
patient as ever,
just beyond the door.

something about me—
i am full of love,
though it spills unevenly,
pooling in places
that were never meant to hold it.

i am not an optimist,
but i will always cradle someone’s pain,
even when my arms shake,
even when my chest cracks open
to make room for the weight of it.

i forgive easily,
though my memory is stubborn,
carving scars where kindness once rested.
it gets hard—
so hard—
when my love is unreturned,
when it is a whisper in a storm,
or a hand reaching for nothing.

but i will always stay,
always say,
“be who you are,
even if it costs me
a piece of myself.”

i feel things deeply—
every joy, every wound—
and i carry them,
because being human
is not just surviving the hurt
but finding the strength
to keep loving anyway.

november bows out with quiet grace,
its brittle breath dissolving into frost.
the trees stand stripped, bare arms raised,
waving goodbye to what was.

december steps in with a silver grin,
soft snow settling where footsteps fade.
it promises warmth in the cold,
but only if you look close enough.

life is this endless passing,
an overlap of endings and starts.
we shed the old like autumn leaves,
and wear the new like winter’s coat.

somewhere in the shifting winds,
we learn to hold both loss and hope.
november teaches how to let go,
while December whispers, begin again.

disappointment hit me like a truck,
an unexpected collision on a quiet street.
i have to gather the pieces of myself,
press them back into place,
pretend they were never scattered.
i have to.

i smile like it’s armor,
i laugh like it’s easy.
i nod, i work, i move,
as if the ground beneath me isn’t cracked,
as if the weight on my chest isn’t real.

how do i function
with this quiet ache,
this invisible bruise?
(someone tell me)
i’m a puppet on strings,
pulled into the shape of “fine.”

no one asks,
and i don’t tell.
the show must go on,
even when the spotlight burns.

at least sadness feels honest
when you know why it’s there—
a sharp ache, a clear wound,
a reason to repair.

but these indifferent tears,
falling without a name,
are heavier somehow,
and harder to explain.

the morning sun fools you into hope
but then the afternoon drags you down
and nighttime leaves you feeling alone
mornings should be a fresh start
but it’s the same endless loop

Today I tried on a bathing suit, just to see what it would look like. I want to cry. I don’t understand why I look like this, and why I can’t be pretty like everyone else. I’m not sure what else I can do, I’m practically starving myself with only one meal a day. I guess I’ve been eating snacks, maybe I should cut them out. I’m working out 30 minutes a day. Maybe I should work out for longer? It’s just, I don’t know if I have the energy to do that. I’m at a loss for what to do. At this point, I feel like the only kind of bathing suit I can wear is a bikini, but I look so **** ugly in it. I’ve never felt uglier than I do right now. I wish I could go to target and pick out a bikini top and just try it on without another thought. I know the way I look is all my fault, but I’ve been actively trying to fix it and it just hasn’t been working. How is any guy supposed to find me attractive? How is he still going to like me after seeing me like this? I really wish I could talk to him about this, but I don’t want to ruin his trip. Or he’d try to convince me that I’m actually beautiful and I don’t have the energy to fight against it. Or he’ll really see how I look and he’ll run away. I wouldn’t blame him.

how can he say he loves me,
when he doesn’t know the weight i carry,
the reasons i move like a shadow,
folding myself small to fit the shape of his world?

he doesn’t know the lines that spill out of me
when the night turns its back,
the words that stitch my breaking heart
into something passable, something whole.
he hates poetry.
he doesn’t know it’s the only thing keeping me here.

he says i seem happier today,
but that’s only the mask holding steady,
only the cracks i’ve learned to patch
with practiced hands and a trembling smile.
does he notice the moments i falter,
when the mask threatens to slip?
or does love mean looking away?

he doesn’t know me.
he doesn’t understand that every laugh is a compromise,
every kiss, a sacrifice.
he doesn’t see the pieces i’ve buried
so no one else has to look at them.
how can he love what he can’t see?

and yet, he stays.
why does he stay?
does he think i’m a puzzle to solve,
a mystery waiting to unfold?
or is he just as lost as i am,
clinging to something that feels like love,
even when it’s not?

and if i asked him to read me,
to trace the lines i write in the dark,
would he hate me too?
would he still say he loves me
if he finally knew?

do you know the weight of silence when no one’s looking?
what is the measure of a smile you didn’t mean to give?
how much of yourself have you left behind, scattered in others’ lives?
do you ever wonder if they notice the holes where you used to be?

ff love feels like drowning, is it love at all?
can you hate your reflection and still call it yours?
when the sun rises, does it ever tire of burning?
and when you cry, do the tears feel like betrayal or release?

what do you hold onto when the world demands too much?
is it possible to love without losing something of yourself?
can a heart break in slow motion, or does it only shatter all at once?
and if the pieces fit together again, are they still the same?

who decides what it means to be enough?
do they ever ask if you’re tired of trying?
when you give and give, how do you tell where you end?
and when the stars die, do they know they were beautiful?

i almost asked for help today
but my throat caught the words
before they could leave
it’s easier to smile than explain

i almost didn’t do my homework
but the guilt got too loud
so i scribbled half-answers at midnight
hoping no one would notice i’m slipping

i almost told my friend i miss them
but what if they don’t feel the same?
so i double-tapped their post instead
like that’s supposed to mean something

i almost felt okay for a second
laughing too hard at a stupid post
but the quiet came back after
heavier than before

everything’s fine, i guess
that’s what i say when they ask
but inside, it feels like
everything’s almost fine

“this isn’t like you,” they say—
but they don’t know what i’m like

they only see the open hands
the ready smile
the way i crumble into comfort
when their worlds shake too hard

i give, and i give, and i give
until my bones feel hollow
i bend, and i break,
but never in ways they can see
“this isn’t like you,” they say—
but they don’t know what i’m like

they don’t see the nights i lie awake
wishing i could scream “enough!”
but swallowing the words instead
they don’t hear the way my heart shouts
when I finally say no—
and they call it selfishness

“this isn’t like you,” they say—
but they don’t know what i’m like
what i’m like is exhausted
what i’m like is disappearing
what i’m like is someone who wonders
if they’ve ever been seen at all
what am i like?

if they knew, they might ask
“why didn’t you tell us?”
but i’ve tried.
i’ve always tried.
and they only listen
when i’m the version of me
that they need me to be

“this isn’t like you,” they say—
but maybe it’s the only thing that ever was

body dysmorphia is a strange thing
it makes getting dressed hard
and loving your body even harder
yet i wish, in the darkest parts of me
that i have it—
if only to explain
why i look like this