i can feel the pain in my chest.
it’s sitting heavy on my lungs.
it hurts to breathe.

i can feel the pain in my head.
i think it’s that pounding i feel,
the unrelenting pressure.

i can feel the pain in my heart.
it’s splitting into pieces.
not enough glue to put it back together.

at least i know the medicine isn’t making me numb

tears are sliding down my cheeks

re-lapse, re-cover
re-peat, re-pair
re-act, re-press
re-lapse, re-member

i thought i’d be kind.
gentle, steady,
the type who always calls back,
who never lets go first.

i thought i’d be better.
the kind of girl who keeps her word,
who doesn’t make promises she can’t hold
like water in her hands.

i didn’t think i’d lie.
not to my friends,
not to myself,
not to the boy who tells me he loves me
even when i flinch.

i didn’t think i’d hurt anyone.
but i did,
with silence, with distance,
with the way i look away when someone needs me.
i didn’t mean to.

i thought healing would look cleaner.
i thought love would fix it.
i thought i’d be someone else by now.
someone more like who i was
before i broke into pieces
and learned to stay that way.

but here i am,
still trying,
still hoping someone will see the good parts
and stay long enough
to remind me they’re real.

i told you i’d let you in,
but i didn’t.
just smiled through the ache
and made you believe
i was okay.

i said i wouldn’t do it again,
but i did.
soft and slow,
like a secret
i already knew how to keep.

i told myself i’d stop,
but i haven’t.
not really.
not even close.

i break promises.
not out of spite,
just out of habit,
or maybe survival.

you say you love me anyway.
but god,
how long can that last?

i feel it coming back again.
the noisy kind of quiet.
the kind that folds me in half
without warning.

and i think about telling you.
typing it out.
waiting for your name to light up
with something soft in return.

but last time,
you didn’t know what to say.
and i felt worse
for needing you at all.

so now i’m stuck
between silence and trying again.
between “i’m fine”
and “i don’t know how to be okay.”

you say you want to be there.
i want to believe you.
i want to think that maybe one day
you’ll hold this ache
like you’ll hold me,
not perfectly,
just enough
to remind me i’m not alone.

but right now,
i stay plagued with the thought of
“do i tell you?”

she says she’s thinking
of asking for help.
and i nod like it’s sunlight,
like the world will bloom
once she says the words out loud.

but i’ve said them.
i’ve swallowed every syllable
like medicine i wasn’t sure would work,
waited for the side effects
instead of the healing.

so i tell her:
you should.
you’re brave.
and i mean it.
even if a quiet part of me
wants to whisper,
it might not save you.

i don’t.
because i want her to believe
in something i no longer do.
because maybe she’ll get lucky.
maybe the help will help.
maybe it doesn’t have to fail
for everyone.

i wish you meant it when you say you love me.
i know you think you do,
but you don’t.
because if you loved me,
you wouldn’t be leaving without saying goodnight.
i know you’re not asleep
because you always fall asleep early when i’m upset.
i get it.
i’m too much.
i’m only good
when i’m telling you how much i love you.

if you loved me
you would’ve said
“stop rereading your old poems,
they only hurt you.”
you would’ve said
“baby i love you
and i wish you didn’t feel like you have to cut yourself.”
and you’d mean it.
when i tell you that i want to anyway,
you’d say
“don’t.
but if you do, be safe.”
and i wouldn’t.
because you love me.
but you don’t.

if you loved me,
i’d feel it even when i’m sad.
even when you’re speechless.
and even when you’re upset with me
for being upset.
but i didn’t.
i felt like
i ruined everything.
and i felt like
you didn’t love me.
please come back to me.

i wish it was enough.
why can’t it be enough?

when i was little, my dad told me
“fortune favors the bold,”
but i thought, for the longest time,
he was saying
“fortune favors the bowl,”
and honestly?
that made more sense to me.
because i’ve never been bold,
but i’ve always been empty.

i learned the right phrase eventually,
but i didn’t do anything with it.
it sat there,
just another thing i wasn’t brave enough to believe in.

i let things happen.
i kept quiet when i should’ve screamed.
i stayed when i should’ve left.
i left when i should’ve stayed.
i waited for signs that never came.

now i hear that phrase and it feels like a joke,
like a door that only opens for people who push it hard enough.
and maybe i could’ve been one of them,
if i wasn’t so scared of being too much,
or not enough.

fortune favors the bold.
and i’ve never been bold.

they think i’m the light
because i smile in crowded rooms
and laugh like nothing’s heavy.
but they don’t see how i carry myself home,
quiet and cracked at the seams.

they think i’m too bright
to belong to shadows,
too warm to understand cold.
they don’t know i keep my coat zipped tight
because winter lives inside me too.

they talk about who i sit with,
like i’m some saint with a healing touch.
but maybe i’m tired
of being the lighthouse
when the waves are drowning me too.

1.  wake up. wish you hadn’t.

2. drink some water. not because you care, but because it’s easier than saying you didn’t.

3. check your phone. nothing urgent. no one noticed.

4. get dressed in whatever hides you best.

5. skip breakfast. you weren’t hungry.

6. think of him. not like a cure, just like a reason.

7. reread old messages. pretend they were written today.

8. send him a heart. mean it. just don’t say the rest.

9. stay busy. fold the laundry. clean the bathroom. go through the motions.

10. cry quietly. turn the music up just a little louder.

11. wish someone would ask the right question.

12. stay alive. because he still wants you to.

this is how i do it—
skip a meal.
call it busy.

this is how i do it—
press the blade.
call it shaving.

this is how i do it—
smile too wide.
call it okay.

this is how i do it—
break a little.
call it growing.

i’m sorry i’m sad again, baby.
i know it can get heavy,
loving someone who can’t
hold themself together.

i wish i could be softer for you,
happier for you,
all sunshine and laughter.
but some days,
i’m just a storm
trying not to touch you.

i’m tired of apologizing
for the way my heart works,
but i still do,
because i never want you to think
this sadness means i love you any less.
i’m sorry,
sad,
and yours.

i don’t write about you
as often as i used to.
i feel sorry about that.
you still make everything
feel like a love story.
even when my hands shake,
even when the days are heavy,
you hold me like the ending
could still be happy.

i love you in quieter ways now,
in glances, in waiting,
in letting myself stay.
and that matters more
than any poem ever could.
but still, i’ll try to write you one
anyway.

lately
i’ve been thinking about killing myself.
it’s not something i usually consider,
but i think i may be
broken beyond repair.
nothing seems worth it anymore.
i wish it was.
god,
i wish it was.
but if im never gonna be enough,
why keep trying?
why live with this pain every day
when i could
not.
not live.
i could not live.
im so sorry.
im so so sorry.
i know we banned that word
but i need you to know how sorry i am.
i’ll try to hold on,
try to keep those demons away,
but im getting tired,
and im outnumbered.

i drain him.
i know it.
and still,
i stay.

i say i’m trying,
but really,
i’m cracking.
i’m drowning
with his lungs
in my chest.

next i’ll bleed
through his arms,
sob
through his eyes,
wreck
what’s left
of his heart.

i was never
meant
to be held.

bandaids on my wrist.
i wish they worked.
i wish i did.

some days, i just want to stop being sad.
not forever, just long enough to breathe
without bracing for the ache.

i don’t even know who i am
when i’m not hurting.
i miss her,
whoever she was.

i wish hard things didn’t scare me.
i wish i could try
without unraveling.
i wish effort didn’t feel like failure,
and failure didn’t feel like the end of me.

i want to do hard things
and still like who i am.
i want to struggle
without falling apart.

i make it hard to love me.
i pull away when i need someone most.
i act like i’m fine
so no one will see how badly i’m not.
i say sorry
for things that aren’t wrong,
just so no one leaves.

i want love
but i don’t know how to hold it.
i’m scared of being too much
and not enough
at the same time.

i wish i would just die already

i’m lonely
but i’m not alone.
there are people.
there is love.
but they don’t see
the place in me
that’s gone quiet.

i laugh
but i don’t feel lighter.
i sleep
but i don’t wake up whole.

i miss myself.
i think she left
in the middle of a sentence,
mid-song,
mid-smile.

and now i carry
someone who looks like me,
talks like me,
but doesn’t feel
like home.

i’m not like you.
me and you,
we are not the same.

you see a scratch,
i see a reason.
you ask why my arms look like this,
i say,
they’re just scars.

you pass by a razor,
i break it down in my mind.
you see a pocket knife,
i wonder
how sharp,
how deep,
how much.

you live.
i survive.

we are not the same.

i don’t want you
to worry.
i just want you
to stay.

i’ll say
i’m fine.
just don’t
go away.