for as long as i can remember,
i’ve been chasing perfect,
tight-laced, gold-star, quiet ache.
and for a while,
i think i caught it.

but i’m not perfect anymore.
i flinch too easy,
snap too fast,
leave texts unread,
pick at scabs that should’ve healed.

people still call me smart, kind, strong,
and i don’t correct them.
it’s easier to wear the mask
than explain the mess underneath.

i disappoint myself
in small, sharp ways,
forgetting, avoiding, breaking down.
i say “i’m fine”
because it’s faster
than confessing i’m not.

expectations stick like static,
even when no one says them out loud.
and i still feel guilty
for letting people love
someone i no longer recognize.

i can’t stop crying and i wish i would because someone is going to notice

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.

i wish people told me they were proud of me

i wish i deserved it

every time i walk into the dollar store,
i find my way to the crafts aisle.
i linger in front of the blades.
there is an exacto knife,
extra edges gleaming in plastic.

i stare too long.
but i’m not supposed to want this anymore.
so i keep walking.

i leave with a bag of rubber bands.
before i reach my car,
one is already tight on my wrist.

as i drive home,
there’s one hand on the wheel,
one hand snapping the band
again and again and again.

by the time i pull into the driveway,
the underside of my wrist is
red, swollen, stinging.

and i like it that way.

i lie in small ways.
i say “i’m okay”
when i’m barely here.
not to deceive,
just to survive.
i let them see the edges
but not the bruise.
and i don’t know
how to hand them
the whole truth.
so this is the version i bring.

i didn’t even like my therapist.
but when i got the message today,
“i’m resigning from my role here,”
i felt a pit open in my stomach
and swallow me whole.

i didn’t particularly like her,
but she knew.
the shape of my sadness,
the thoughts i only say when i’m tired.
i gave her a map,
half truth, half lie,
and now she’s tearing it to shreds.

i’ll sit across from someone new,
say, “i guess it started three summers ago,”
even though it started long before
i ever said it out loud.

like how at eight,
i worried about the size of my thighs.
or how
i’d build wild theories
if my mom didn’t come home on time.

they’ll ask,
“what do you want out of this?”
and i won’t say:
to not be broken.
to not have to explain.

i’ll lie,
just like i always do.

you reached out
on january 7th in 2024,
and i haven’t stopped
loving you since.

in music,
in poems,
in every sleepy
“goodnight, i love you.”

you are the quiet
i want to come home to.
my comfort,
my constant,
my boy.

how do i explain
to the little girl
with long white-blonde hair
and blue eyes filled wonder,
that i want to hurt her.
that i’ve thought about it
more than once.
that i’ve cried over her
like a funeral
i didn’t attend.

she used to sing
in the grocery store,
twirl down hallways,
laugh so hard
she snorted.
she didn’t care
who was watching.

how do i explain
that now i flinch
when people look at me.
that i pick at my skin
just to feel
something.
that i miss her
like she died
and somehow
i’m the one who killed her.

i can’t explain.
so i whisper
i’m sorry
to the mirror.
and try,
just for tonight,
not to hurt
what’s left of her.

i miss it.
the sting.
the ache.
the tiny rush of
doing something wrong
on purpose.
like i was in control.
like the hurt
was mine.

i know it’s ****** up.
but sometimes
i still want it.
not for attention.
not for drama.
just to feel
something
i understand.

mom says
i’m the best person she knows.
i smile.
i’m good at pretending.

she says i’m kind,
but i know when it’s a performance.
she says i’m gifted,
but it feels like a trick
i’m barely pulling off.

my sax squeaks,
my test scores blur,
my muscles ache in the water.
and still she calls it talent.

i nod along,
quiet and guilty.

if i’m so good,
why do i always
feel like a lie?

baby,
when i say i love you
i’m half-asleep
and whole in it.

you’re the reason
i don’t need
a wind-down.

i close my eyes
and fall
into you.

the sky is soft tonight
and so am i,
thinking of you
the way i always do,
reminding myself
of my overflowing love.

baby,
you make everything
feel like music again.
like late summer light
on tired skin,
like laughter in the car
with nowhere to go.

i’ve written you
a hundred ways,
but still
this feels like
the first time.

i think i
used to
be a person

i slide the blade
s l o w l y
across my pale, soft skin.
it burns,
i don’t smile.
but it’s satisfying to watch
the blood pool in beads.
it hurts.
but it doesn’t hurt as much
as the pain i caused you today.
so i do it again.

i wish you were here
so i could tell you everything
without trying to make it sound okay.
just talk,
about things that matter
and things that don’t.
about why the sky feels too far away today
or how i’m tired for no reason.
i think if you were here,
the words would come easier.
or maybe i wouldn’t need so many.

there’s a difference
between loving someone
and being in love with them.

i know that now.
because i love you,
in the way that feels steady,
in the way i’d hold your hand through anything,
in the way you live in my days
without needing to try.

but i am also in love with you.
and that’s different.

that’s why i think of you
when my legs ache
and my chest burns
and i want to quit,
because once,
you said pain means progress.
and somehow, that stayed.

it’s why your laugh feels like sunlight.
why the shape of your name
sits softly in the back of my throat
when i’m too shy to say it.
why i memorize your voice
like it’s the only music
i’ll ever need to hear again.

being in love means
i don’t just want you near me,
i want to be seen by you.
known by you.
still wanted anyway.

and that’s what scares me.
not the loving,
but how deeply i feel it.
how much i want to deserve it.
how quiet the ache gets
when you say my name
like i’ve never been too much.

there’s a difference.
and i know it
because i love you,
and i am in love with you.

and that truth
doesn’t hurt
quite like it used to.

you told me “pain means progress,”
and now i hear you
in the ache of every muscle,
in the quiet burn that comes after trying.

not because we worked out together,
but because you said it once,
like it was nothing,
and it stayed.

and now,
when i run farther than i want to,
or breathe through the hurt,
i think of you.

not in some distant way.
you’re here.
you’re mine.
you’re the reason i don’t give up
even when it stings.

and maybe the idea is a little twisted,
but it reminds me that loving you
makes me stronger,
even if it hurts.

do not fall in love with people like me.
i will destroy you
so beautifully
yet so quietly
that you won’t even realize you’re gone
until you are.

not because i want to.
because some part of me thinks loving me
is something you have to survive.

i will pull away
when all i want is to be pulled closer.
i will freeze
when you offer warmth.
i will try to disappear
just to see if you come looking.

and you will.
and that will break me
more than it ever breaks you.

so do not fall in love with people like me,
unless you can love someone
who is still learning
how to be loved.

i’m only seventeen,
i don’t know anything.

but i know i miss you.

hey love,
i know you’re only gonna up there for a little while,
but i’ve been missing you this whole time.
i keep thinking about you in the clouds,
somewhere between here and there,
and how even the sky feels a little quieter
when you’re not around.
how far are you away from me now,
at this moment?
i hope vacation is good to you,
but not too good.
i want you to come back.
i miss you already.

you’re in the sky,
and i’m still here,
counting clouds
and minutes
until you land safely,
until you message me back,
and feel, again,
like the world makes sense.

green means go
but i hesitate.
because every green light
turns yellow eventually,
and i’ve learned to fear
what’s coming.

it’s not really about driving.
it’s just,
every time life feels good,
i’m already scared
of losing it.

i poeticize too much.
a glance becomes a story,
a pause becomes a metaphor.
you say “hi”
and suddenly i’m writing about the way
your voice cuts through the noise in my chest.

i turn us into sonnets
before we’ve even lived the scene.
your hand brushes mine
and it’s a whole stanza
about skin and gravity
and how maybe the universe
meant for this moment to happen.

you say “i didn’t sleep much last night,”
and i think:
the moon must’ve been jealous
of how bright you were yesterday.
i poeticize.
because the truth,
as it stands,
feels too raw.
too terrifying.
too good.

so i cover it in metaphors
and rhyme it with prettier pain
until it sounds like a poem
instead of a prayer.
and maybe that’s my way
of saying
i love you.

not in a loud, bright way.
but in the margins of notebooks,
in lyrics i never share,
in every sentence i twist
just to feel closer to you.

i poeticize
because plain words
can’t hold you.
but maybe
poetry can.
maybe i can learn to, too.

i love the way he listens,
like nothing else matters.
i love how he always makes me laugh,
even when i don’t want to.

i love how easy it is
to be myself with him.
how he makes everything
a little less heavy.

i just…
i love him.
simple as that.

summer with you
will be
forbidden meetings
and “tell me about your day.”
laughing in whispers,
loving in glances,
missing each other
endlessly and unforgivingly.

it will be
the ache of wanting more
and the sweetness of having enough.
murmurs of nothing across screens,
and talking in code,
listening to songs that only we understand.

it will be
the quiet promise
that we’ll stick together
in every way we know how.
new, different,
a little secret,
but still,
undeniably us.

“have there been any safety concerns
since last week?”
“no,” i lie,
hoping she doesn’t
see the truth
sitting heavy in my eyes.

“have there been urges?”
“yes,” i say,
truthfully,
but like i’m afraid she’ll flinch.

“why don’t you act on them?”
“because i’m not allowed to anymore.”
it was the truth,
just wrapped in a lie.

she smiles.
“that’s adorable.”

school is out.
the air smells like sunscreen
and grass clippings
and some version of freedom
i’m still learning how to hold.

i want to be the old me again.
the one who didn’t flinch
at every memory.
but i never quite live up
to who she was.

there’s no more
funny band classes with him,
no more hallway glances
that meant more than they said.
and that hurts more
than i want it to.

but it was the worst year
of my life.
and maybe,
just maybe,
leaving it behind
is something.
not everything.
not healing.
but something.

i’m trying not to think too hard.
because it hurts.
because it always does.
but you can’t stop an overthinker
from thinking,
just like you can’t stop a heart
from wanting.

my head aches
with the weight of everything
i can’t fix.
my nose won’t stop running,
my cough shakes something loose
in my chest,
but not the part
that misses you.

and i do.
miss you in a way that
makes the room spin,
makes me wish i was
dumb and lighthearted
and easy.
but i’m not.

i think too hard.
feel too much.
want too deeply.
and right now,
i want you
more than i know
how to handle.