it’s selfish,
but i love
that every word i give you
turns into poetry.

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

i cut up my leg today
thinking no one would see
thinking swim was over
thinking i was safe
but tomorrow
i’ll stand by the pool
water reflecting back at me
and i’ll wonder if they’ll notice
the way regret looks like red lines
against my skin

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.

how could anyone love an eliza
when it stumbles off my tongue
like it doesn’t belong to me?

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

i’m sorry

a secret im too scared to share with anyone
except random strangers on the internet:
i wish i had an eating disorder.
i would be sad
but at least i’d be skinny.

im sorry.
i really am.

i need help but it feels impossible to ask

valentine’s day came and went,
but i barely noticed—
too busy drowning in a loneliness
i can’t even name.

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

i made it through the day,
but not yet through the night.

“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

i may have dug the hole
but you pushed me into it
now i’m stuck down here
buried in this mess

when i said “i’m fine”
what i meant was “i’m tired”
not of you, but of trying to be
the version of me you could love

when i said “take care”
what i meant was “please stay”
but goodbye is easier when
it doesn’t sound like begging

when you said “i’m sorry”
what you meant was “it’s over”
i caught the silence between your words
the way it wrapped around my throat

and now, when i say nothing
what i mean is everything
i never knew how to tell you
while you were still listening

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

grief was sharp when i lost her,
a knife that cut clean.
it hurt, but at least i knew why.
now the sadness has no name,
just a weight i can’t put down,
a dull ache that never leaves,
a quiet kind of drowning.
i don’t know what’s worse,
the pain that made me cry
or the emptiness that won’t let me feel.

my legs burn from the treadmill,
god, it hurts so bad…
but no—
don’t think like that.

pain means progress,
and that’s all i care about.

i know now you’re the only one
i know now i’m the lonely one
i reached for you, but you’re out of reach
this lesson life is cruel to teach

i sang your name like a fragile song
believed in us, but i was wrong
you’ve moved ahead, yet i’m standing still
chasing shadows against my will

i know now love is a fleeting thing
a tether snapped, a severed string
i know now that the past is done
you’re not mine, and i’m no one’s one

i miss knowing your life,
not just you.
i know your soul like it’s my own,
yet i don’t even know
what daily life looks like to you anymore.
you took a part of me
that day in early july,
a part of me i’ll never get back,
but wouldn’t want to, either.
you took summer with you
and since then
things haven’t been the same.

my heart hurts
i can feel it in my chest

i wish i could feel it
the ache of not being enough
the way it once cracked me open

but now
there’s only silence
an emptiness where sorrow should live

nothing breaking

nothing healing

just

n u m b n e s s

still

i feel sick to my stomach
reading words you once wrote
that once belonged to me
my heart is throbbing

my biggest fear is you seeing me
the way i see myself—
the cracks beneath the surface,
the doubts i file away

i hide my flaws in shadows deep,
but what if you should find
the fractured mirror that i see
when i look inside my mind?

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

i mess everything up
i can’t stop crying
i don’t know how to make things right
i’m not supposed to be a person that hurts others
i only hurt myself
i care

it’s weird.
it feels like everything i do
is for you to notice.

but somehow,
you notice things
no one else ever has.
things even i
never knew were there.

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.

i always know it’s getting bad
when i start chewing on the tie of my sweatshirt.
i think it’s called an
aglet,
but all i know is,
it’s fraying like
me.