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

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

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

i need help but it feels impossible to ask

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.

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

“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

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

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

my heart hurts
i can feel it in my chest

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

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.

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

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?

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past

there’s a guilt i can’t explain,
an ache without a name,
like i’m sorry for something
i never became.

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.

i feel things too deeply
it’s just kind of the way i am
each laugh or each sigh
is a weight upon my heart
it’s like i can sense unspoken pain
within every crowded room
god i wish it didn’t have to be like this
i still remember what you said
why do you think
i stopped bringing lunch?
someone please make it end
it’s too much for me
my heart is too wide

maybe one day, we’ll be stronger,
not measuring our worth in broken promises,
not testing our willpower like it’s a game
we were never meant to win.

maybe one day, the nights won’t stretch so long,
filled with caffeine and quiet ache,
or sharp edges and softer regrets,
as we wait for something to change.

i can’t promise to stop,
and neither can you,
but maybe one day,
we won’t have to.

i’m easy to hold,
but impossible to reach

your laugh still echoes, clear as day,
a melody i’d know miles away.
yet now, it’s distant, faint, untied,
like a shadow of the time we tried.

“don’t be a stranger,” you softly said,
but the weight of it filled me with dread.
isn’t it strange how that plea is spun
when the stranger’s thread has already begun?

a last act of desperation, so bare,
a whisper thrown into empty air.
we both knew what it really meant,
a way to hold on when the ties were spent.

now you’re someone i barely know,
a flicker of light from long ago.
i wonder, would you recognize me?
or has time blurred what used to be?

“don’t be a stranger,” the words still ache,
a promise we couldn’t help but break.
yet your laugh remains, sharp and true,
a stranger’s gift i still hold onto.

i felt
happy
today

i will not
let myself
ruin it

sick to my stomach
this morning,
tired from putting up a mask
and denying the truth.
this isn’t fair
but mostly for you.
i’ve been feeling sick
but i should help myself
not call you.
nothing left to say
because we both know
we’re still not over it.

im running on empty
wish there was a way out

i wish the air smelled
like summer did four years ago.
chlorine and asphalt after rain,
sunburnt skin and something sweet.

i spend each winter
longing for those days.
but when summer comes,
it never quite fits right,
like a song i used to love
but can’t remember the lyrics to.

my summers are okay now
but they feel like echoes,
fading, distant,
never loud enough
to drown out the missing.