for once,
no one talked over me.
the air felt light.
we kept meeting eyes
across the noise.
not awkward,
just right.

i wish sadness didn’t feel
like something i had to hide.
that it could just be
without alarms going off.
without threats of white walls
and blank stares.

i wish the boy i love could hold my hurt
without thinking it’s about him.
i wish being broken
didn’t break everyone else.

i wish i was thirteen.
when my best friend lived next door
and the girl down the street still liked me
and the world hadn’t begun
falling out from under my feet.

i wish jazz felt like freedom,
not failure.
i wish i still stood out,
instead of drowning
in the effort it takes
just to stay average.

i wish my world
didn’t end
every
single
day.

she told me to cover up the scars.
i told her
no one ever noticed.

she said that couldn’t be true.
but it was.

no one gasped.
no one asked.
they just looked through me,
like pain’s not real
unless it begs.

she says she doesn’t understand.
says i have no trauma.
i guess sadness needs a villain
to be taken seriously.

but what if i’m the villain?
what if the hurt
comes from me?
what if i broke myself
before anyone had the chance to?

what if no one saw
because
they never looked?

i called you
when texting felt too heavy,
too many words stuck inside.

you picked up.

i tried to hide the tears,
soft breaths breaking through,
hoping you wouldn’t hear
the weight in my voice.

and still, you stayed.

i was told to open up,
so i did,
just a little.
i peeled back the corner
of something i’d kept quiet
for years.
they smiled,
tilted their head,
asked how long
i’d been “thinking wrong.”
wrong.
as if thoughts were math problems
with a single right answer.
as if feeling too much
is something to be fixed.
they say it’s distorted.
and it’s irrational.
like maybe
if i rewired my brain
to sound more like theirs,
i’d finally be okay.
but this is the only voice
i’ve ever had.
and when it shakes,
when it breaks,
when it screams,
it’s still mine.
they don’t get to label that
a symptom.
if the way i think is wrong,
and the way i feel is worse,
i guess i’m broken, then.

we’ve left pieces of ourselves
in too many pages already
but june is blank
and maybe this time,
we write something worth keeping

purple was always mine.
marker stains on busy hands,
birthday balloons, beaded bracelets,
the crayon worn down first.

i said it was my favorite
without knowing why,
just that it made my heart full,
even when nothing else did.

then one day,
it showed up in your eyes.

not the color,
but the feeling.

the way you speak softly
when i’m unraveling.
the way you remember
what i forget to say out loud.

maybe that’s why i loved purple first.
so i’d know what to do with you.

so i wouldn’t be scared
of something that beautiful.

i told you i felt like gatsby,
haunted by what was,
dreaming in green light.
but you just smiled,
said i was daisy.
and god, i hated how right you were.

because i do run when things get too real.
i do love in half-formed sentences.
and sometimes i dress the hurt in pretty colors
and call it grace.

but you,
you never asked me to stay frozen in time.
you said we don’t need to rewrite the past
to build something better.
you saw the wreckage,
and still,
you chose me.

maybe i don’t have to be daisy.
maybe you don’t have to be gatsby.
maybe we don’t need tragedy
to make this feel like love.

julie is soft strength,
a quiet kind of knowing,
she says “i love you” like breathing,
and means it every time.

manda is a wildfire,
messy and loud and full of heart,
she will fight the world for you,
and never ask for thanks.

livie is my reflection,
stormy one second, laughing the next,
she understands me in a way
that doesn’t need explanation.

they hold pieces of me
i forgot i gave away,
tiny, stubborn fragments
i’d never find alone.

they are not the same.
they are not always gentle.
but they are mine.

and they are everything.

know,
everything i write is for you.
it’s always been for you.
even when i made you pinky promise
not to look at my profile,
because i was scared you’d know
just how much
i’ve been in love with you.

you entered my life january 7th, 2024,
but i had known you before.
eighth grade me, seventh grade you,
playing in the jazz band.
you were so ******* quiet,
but somehow i knew
i wanted to know you.

we met again my sophomore year,
your freshman year.
things were different.
at marching band,
i prayed they’d pair us as partners.
i didn’t know why.
i didn’t know you.
but i knew i wanted to.

so when you added me on snap
january 7th,
i added you back.
you sent a picture of a piano.
i asked,
“do you play?”

i didn’t know
those words would change my life.

from then on,
i was yours,
whether you knew it or not.

we’ve had bumps in the road.
i’ve broken your heart.
but with every message,
every word,
you change my life.
you make it better.
you guide me through the darkness.

thank you.

my chest caves in,
pressing bone into breath,
squeezing my lungs like fists.
my heart is bleeding,
but i’d rather feel it in my leg,
where pain makes sense,
where i can see it.
seventeen days,
and still, i’m here.
but god,
how much longer can i be?

your name is more than a name to me.
it’s a pulse,
a reflex,
a sound that lives in my chest
more than my mouth.
i hear it and feel,
not just you,
but everything we ever were:
the late night texts,
the saxophones,
the way you once said my name like it was music.
your name is the word i think of
when people ask what love feels like.
it’s the ache behind songs,
the catch in my breath
when someone else says sean.
sean.
s e a n.
they don’t know what it means to me.

i’m in math,
but i’m writing about you again.
i don’t care about the numbers,
only if you slept,
only if you’re okay,
only if you’re hurting.
i feel like a fraction
when you’re not whole.

i hurt people who love me,
i lie to stay afloat.
i say i’m fine
when i’m folding in on myself.
i miss him,
even when i shouldn’t.
i want too much.
i disappear.
i think i’m a bad person.
maybe i am.
maybe i’m not.
either way,
i can’t seem to stop.

i can’t hold your hand,
but i’m holding the thought of you,
hoping it’s enough
to steady you
through the ache.

i told them i was tired.
they said “get some sleep.”
but i didn’t mean
tired like that.
i meant tired
like i don’t want to be alive.
but no one
heard me.

i tell my mom i’m fine
with a smile that tastes like rust.
every “i’m okay”
tightens something in my chest.

i nod in therapy
when she asks if the thoughts are gone.
they’re not.
but i’m tired of proving i’m hurting.

i say i haven’t talked to you,
and maybe that’s true
if you don’t count dreams,
or the poems you still live in.

i used to think lying
was a way to keep the peace.
but now it just feels
like bleeding beneath a bandaid.

and i don’t want to lie anymore.
not to her.
not to them.
not to myself.

i used to think love was fire,
bright, consuming,
burning everything it touched.

but with you,
it felt more like daylight,
quiet and golden,
something that warmed
without asking for anything back.

you had those soft gold eyes,
like morning sun
on a window,
and i wanted to be that light,
the kind you reach for,
the kind that stays.

i was sunshine, once.
i know that.
the kind that made you squint
but smile anyway.
but maybe even sunshine
can overstay its welcome,
leave behind a burn
you never meant to carry.

and now i wonder
if i’m just a sunburn memory,
the kind that lingers
long after the warmth is gone.

the sun loved me a little too long,
and now i carry it,
this quiet burn,
like the way your name still lingers
even when i don’t say it out loud.

my skin will peel
in places where it once glowed,
the way feelings fade
but never quite leave.
and maybe i knew
i’d get hurt,
but i stayed outside anyway.

because sometimes,
you miss the warmth
more than you mind the pain.
this is how love lingers,
not in fire,
but in afterlight.

i laughed today
but joy is light
and i am not.
so when the quiet came,
i sank like stone.

you’re not mine anymore,
but sometimes i forget.
i still turn toward the sound
of your name like instinct,
like how birds are drawn north.

you were saturday mornings and saxophone solos,
the quiet buzz during swim meets,
the boy who held my words
like they were something sacred.

i still see your eyes
in coffee cups and the sun,
still hear your laugh
in the songs i swore
i’d stop listening to.

some loves don’t leave.
and missing you,
it’s a kind of music now.
not always loud.
just always playing.

i used to be a whole person,
but now fragments of me
are in living within
people i don’t call.

my “friends,”
they’re planning a trip,
all joy and noise,
asking me my availability.
i don’t want to go.
they don’t know
i take off my smile at night,
like a soaked-through costume.
they don’t know
the girl in their group chat
is just a mask i wear
so i don’t disappear.
they have never realized
every night i struggle
to make it to morning.

i don’t think i can love you any more.
but i don’t think i can love you anymore.

emotional pain doesn’t have a home,
but physical pain does.
that’s why i cut.

you are piano melodies.
every note soft, deliberate, aching.
i know your music by heart
but i can’t touch the keys.

your hair is chaos
in the most gentle way.
messy brown strands
i want to smooth down
just once.
just once.

your eyes.
golden brown and searching,
like they’re always looking
for something deeper,
just never in me.

and when you smile,
the world gets quiet.
it’s not a metaphor,
it’s just what happens.
like the sky pauses
to listen to you be kind.

your laugh sounds like music.
not the sad kind, either.
the kind that fills a room
and makes it feel warmer.
and god,
i wish it were for me.

but this is how i love you:
at a distance.
in silence.
from behind the safety
of poems and timing
and unspoken things.

you are not mine.
but some loves don’t ask
for ownership,
just the privilege
of still feeling them.

i went to the doctor
to check in on my meds.
i told her that nothing felt different.
she celebrated like it was good.
i don’t think it is.
i think i need something to change,
right now.

she begged me to show her
the cuts stacked neatly on my leg.
but i wouldn’t.
no one should see my pain,
not when she’ll look at it
with disgust.

i found
i couldn’t look her in the eye.
this is because
she had brilliant brown eyes,
and they reminded me of yours.
i think they’re gorgeous
but it also hurt to see.

i wish we could still talk.
maybe i’ll say hello to you,
but i don’t know what else i’d say
and if you would even
want to hear from me.
don’t forget,
you can always reach out.

school is almost over,
and i’m glad.
summer means working my *** off,
and summer means
i don’t have to see you
and feel that pain in my chest.

i miss you i miss you.
despite your comment on my poem,
you’re not some stupid boy.
and i know that
because i am not a stupid girl.
i wouldn’t give my heart
to someone who didn’t deserve it.

“can’t repeat the past?” he said.
“why of course you can.”
and god, i believed him.
still do, most days.
because i see you
in every flash of spring,
in the gold glint of things
i was never meant to hold.

the green light still blinks,
even if it’s just in my head,
a soft pulse saying
you were real,
you were mine,
once.

i built my love the way he did:
with trembling hands,
and too much hope.
like maybe if i hurt enough,
time will fold in on itself,
and we’ll be sixteen
and invincible
again.

but dreams die slow,
especially the beautiful ones.
and i’m still reaching across water
for something
that won’t reach back.

i keep thinking:
the past isn’t dead
if i still ache for it.
but maybe that’s just part
of the story i keep telling myself,
a softer lie
than letting go.

i can’t decide if it’s weird
to write these still,
knowing that you could read them.
only if you wanted to.
i can’t decide.

but i’ll write anyway,
because if i can’t talk to you,
i might as well write.
we talk a little bit,
but i can’t decide if it’s nice
or if it hurts.

but we’ll talk anyway.
a little bit i guess.
i don’t know.
today is just
a day of indecision.
isn’t that my whole problem?

the first time,
i couldn’t decide if
i should follow my heart,
or listen to my family.
i chose my family.
i regret it every day.

the second time,
i couldn’t decided what i wanted.
did i want you?
or just your friendship?
i was confused.
but i’m not anymore.

the third time,
i couldn’t make the decision.
i couldn’t do what had to be done
so that we could be us.
together.
i’m ******* stupid.
and now it’s too late.

i could’ve sworn
love started with an s
and ended with an n,
four letters that felt
like home in my mouth.

your name,
a prayer i whispered
into my pillowcase,
half-hope, half-memory.

i still trace it
on foggy windows
and in the quiet parts
of my day.

i keep forgetting
how to forget you.

i read,
reread,
your poems not once,
not twice,
over and over
like a mantra.
sometimes a little bit of you
is enough.
and sometimes,
it’s not.

i curled up in my mother’s bed
because i knew what i’d do if i didn’t.
she didn’t ask why.
she just let me stay.
she knew why,
and i think it hurt her to know.
but not as much
as it would’ve hurt
if i hadn’t stayed.
mothers know things.
like how silence can bleed.
and how company
can be a tourniquet.

this has been the longest 47 hours of my life

i read your poem.
even though it made my heart hurt,
it’s nice to know you
don’t hate me.
i don’t think.

it’s funny,
10 things i hate about you
is one of my favorite movies.
so many people say
that i look like the lead.

i wonder if you read my poems.
if you analyze them
they way that i analyze yours.
i wonder if you try to keep up
or if it hurts too bad.
believe me,
it hurts.

it’s almost two weeks
on my medicine,
and i feel no different.
i guess that’s expected
but i’m just tired
of nothing changing.

i have therapy tomorrow.
i’m already dreading it.
she kept saying
“promote awareness”
as if i didn’t know
she was reading off a script.