all this anger and all this sorrow
used to be love

it used to be laughter
and late-night texts
the kind of thing
we swore will never fade

but now, it’s a weight
i carry alone
all the silence
every moment i wish i could take back

what do you do
when something so beautiful
turns into this?

tonight is my last night being 16,
and the air feels heavy,
like it knows what i’m leaving behind.
i would pay everything i have,
every dollar, every secret,
every scar,
just to go back.
back to scraped knees instead of broken hearts,
to believing every birthday was magic,
to running without wondering
where i was going.
but time is cruel,
and childhood is a price you can’t refund.

you said you didn’t understand me
because you can’t think of a reason i should be sad for.
how do i explain depression
to someone who only knows sunlight,
whose heart has never grown heavy with rain,
who has never felt the weight of nothing at all?

you can’t understand,
because you’ve never fought your own mind,
never tried to build joy
from the rubble of yourself.
how do i explain?
i don’t.

i am breaking down,
a flood behind my eyes,
a weight i cannot carry,
a silence i can’t disguise.

the walls feel too close,
my thoughts too loud—
a scream that no one hears
in a room without a crowd.

this is the end.
this is all there is.

i didn’t smell your cologne today.
you saw my swollen red eyes in class
and you didn’t ask if i was okay.
you didn’t laugh when i made a joke—
you just looked away.

i lost you in the quiet moments,
when the words felt heavy and broken.
i think of calling, but i think i’m blocked.
you don’t love me anymore.

i lost you in the crowded spaces,
where laughter vanished and shadows grew.
i reached for you, but you were gone.
you don’t love me anymore.

you don’t love me anymore.
you don’t love me anymore.
you don’t love me anymore.
you don’t love me anymore.

i want to stop bleeding,
but the only one who’d understand
is the reason i start again.
there’s no one left to hold the weight
but me, and i’m so tired.

yeah, call me a ****.
it must be why i’m not only afraid of intimacy,
but any sort of physical touch as well.

i will never forget how you left with zero hesitation
i will never forget how easy it was to break two hearts
i will never forget the silence that followed
i will never forget the way you didn’t turn around
i will never forget all the words i left unsaid
i will never forget how i’m the one to blame
i will never forget the way your name still lingers in my mind
i will never forget how you made forgetting impossible

it’s snowing,
but not enough to cover the ground,
not enough to stick.

just like me—
falling, trying to matter,
but never enough.

one year ago today,
you reached out for the first time.
my mom says i dodged a bullet,
but i know—
i would’ve taken that bullet for you,
been collateral in your war.

except now
it might be my own bullet.

how do i go back to when i was happy…?

my new year’s resolution
is to take my medicine every night

why would i not take it
if it keeps me whole?

i don’t know
i wish you could tell me

he would be embarrassed to know
how long i’ve spent thinking
about what we could’ve been
if fear hadn’t been my loudest voice.

we had a rhythm, a quiet pattern:
i came home from school,
he went to practice,
i carved silence into my skin
and pushed my body to forget him.
when he got back,
we practiced our instruments separately,
but he was always the reason
i tried so hard to be better.

then we’d talk—god, we’d talk.
he knew me,
better than anyone ever has,
better than anyone ever will.
sometimes i wonder if he still could.

nobody understands
that soon it will be a year ago
since he wished me happy birthday
and i fell in love
it’s january once more
and that means everything begins again
but nothing feels new

december 26 is the saddest day of the year.
the wrapping paper is gone, the songs have faded.
yesterday, the house was full of light,
but now it feels hollow,
like joy was something borrowed
and the owner came to collect.

it’s the inevitable comedown of christmas.
a year stretches out before you,
but you know it won’t be the same.
the world moves on,
the magic grows thinner,
and you’re left holding memories
that feel heavier than the wait.

the year unwraps its brightest cheer
in frosted lights and candle’s glow,
as christmas waits till we’re all near,
its warmth the last the year will show.

the story saves its sweetest line
for when the pages nearly close,
the song crescendos one last time,
the crowd erupts, the music goes.

the journey feels like it’s complete
when weary feet at last arrive,
and even meals reserve their treat
for final bites that make us thrive.

why does the best so often wait,
as if to tease, as if to mend?
perhaps it’s just life’s quiet way
of saying joy is worth the end.

i felt
happy
today

i will not
let myself
ruin it

the vacuum hums,
and i feel it in my chest—
a restless kind of anger,
like a match about to strike.

maybe it’s because the sound
reminds me of yelling,
of my mom’s voice tearing
through the air like it had teeth.
when i hear it now,
i want to scream back,
but there’s no one here to blame.

the only time i can stand it
is when my hands are on the handle,
when i’m in control of the noise.
maybe that’s the metaphor:
it’s not the sound,
but the power to make it stop.

the snow falls, but it doesn’t stay
even december can’t make me whole again

the space between us
isn’t just miles—
it’s the stories i can’t tell you in person,
the way your laugh feels quieter
when it’s filtered through a screen.

i wonder if you ever think about
how different things used to be,
when we could share a joke
and feel it echo between us,
not get lost in the distance.

friendship shouldn’t be this fragile,
but sometimes i worry—
how much longer can we hold on
when even time zones pull us apart?

is everyone else broken like me,

just better at hiding it??



or is everyone else okay,

except for me??

if she’s the kind of girl you like,
you definitely never liked me

they ask why we’re broken—
why teens drown in sadness,
why girls starve themselves,
why lives are lost to silence.
this is why.

her words settle like dust
on the edges of mirrors
i already avoid.

she called me names
i’ve spent years
unlearning.

her voice wasn’t loud,
but it carried—
straight to the part of me
that still believes
every insult
ever whispered.

i tell myself she’s wrong,
but i know i’ll carry this
long after she’s forgotten
she ever said it.

funny how the numbers don’t lie,
even when i do.
unadded, unseen, but somehow
you’re still the one i sent the most to.

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