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(they’re not common
but they come in floods)
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contemplate the what-ifs
feel immense sadness
(for no reason)
it’s nothing new

today, the urge
was louder than usual.
it followed me
through every number,
clung to my pencil
as i finished my math test
with shaking hands.

in jazz band,
it buzzed under the keys,
twisting under every note
like it belonged there.

i saw blood in places
it didn’t belong.
on the paper,
on my lap,
on the floor of my mind.

but i didn’t let it out.
not today.
not this time.

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’m trying so hard to be okay

the sky is orange,
and so are we,
faces lit by the last light,
music shaking the air,
hair caught in the wind
like it wants to leave too.

she’s back.
we’re thirteen again,
laughing like the year
never stretched between us.

sunlight spills through open windows,
sticks to our skin,
melts the silence
between heartbeats.

i’m in love.
she’s home.
the sky is on fire.

everything is orange.
everything is alive.

and for a second,
everything
is exactly
enough.

i’m easy to hold,
but impossible to reach

i think i’m over it now.
not because i’ve stopped missing you,
but because i’ve learned how to carry it,
how to let the weight settle without sinking.

you are still there, in my dark, lonely moments,
in the way i am forever changed,
in the way i almost reach for my phone
before remembering there’s nothing left to say.

maybe i’ll always miss you,
but i think i can live with that.

i’ve got this perpetual guilt.
i’ve hurt everyone i’ve ever loved,
but still they stay.
not in the way i need —
never when i’m pressing a blade into skin —
but still, they stay.
and still, it’s more than i deserve.

i built this place,
this hell i live in.
brick by brick, mistake by mistake.
i deserve the burn,
the collapse, the ache.
nobody knows the war inside me —
how my mind claws at itself,
and somehow,
i always end up losing.

i think i have perpetual grief, too.
i am always mourning something.
a love, a friend, a version of myself —
i think i’ve never really let go of anything.
everything i’ve ever lost
still lives somewhere in my chest,
heavy and sharp, like glass.

i try to pick up the pieces,
but i’m too tired now —
too hollow, too gone.
and every time i reach for myself,
i cut my hands on what’s left.

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

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 think about
how mom panicked
when i told her i had cut,
as if she could fix it
if she moved fast enough.

i think about
how dad cried,
eyes breaking like mirrors.
he never cries.

i think about
how the doctor looked at me,
all pity and pleading,
“just let me see,”
like proof would help her understand.

but it’s not about seeing.
it’s about feeling
what no one else
can carry for me.

life is just spewing purple,
not always bright,
sometimes dark,
but it means something.
there’s joy to be caught,
even in small amounts.

i sit in classrooms where futures are mapped
like road trips with no tolls, no dead ends,
just open highways and endless signs
pointing to anywhere but here.
but my world is smaller,
a pin on the map i cannot pull up,
a radius i cannot expand.
they speak of choices like air,
like water, like something everyone drinks,
but i sip scarcity,
i taste limits on my tongue.
my acceptance letter won’t be a ticket,
no plane, no train, no fresh start—
just a short drive down roads i’ve always known,
to a school that chose me
simply because i had no choice at all.

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

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

it’s harder to exist when you feel like you’re just floating.
i tell myself i’m fine, but i’m not.
i’m tired of pretending i’m whole
when i’ve left pieces of myself
scattered in the people i loved
and now i can’t find them anymore.

i want someone to see through my mask,
to catch the lie when i say it,
to notice the way my hands shake
when i say i’m fine.

i want someone to look past the smile,
past the jokes, past the easy nods,
to press just hard enough
that i have no choice but to break.

because i think i need to.
because i think i want to.
because i don’t know how to ask.

she said we need to “promote awareness”
like that’s a magic spell
like i haven’t been painfully aware
of every breath, every failure,
every thought that eats me alive
before breakfast.

i sat there,
stiff on a couch
that wasn’t soft enough
to pretend it cared.
i smiled politely,
like i didn’t already know
what was broken.

i come clean
with chlorine in my hair
and a damp towel heart,
still wrung out
from pretending i’m fine.

she asks me
to hold my sadness
up to the light
like it’s a gemstone
i forgot i was wearing.

on a scale of one to ten—
(what if it’s an eight
but shaped like a childhood memory?)
i say “seven.”
i lie.
or maybe i don’t.

she asks me to measure it,
but how do you chart
a thunderstorm’s favorite room?
how do you scale
the hush of drowning?
still, i try.

she nods
like she understands.
and maybe she does.
or maybe she just knows
how to fold a pause
into something gentle.

she writes,
i wonder what part of me
she’s translating
into numbers,
into categories of deficits.

either way,
i press “leave meeting”
and stare at the screen
long after it goes black.
not sure if anything changed,
but at least
i showed up.

seventeen feels like a standing in a doorway,
too old to go, too young to stay.
it’s realizing you’re easier to reach than you thought,
but still, no one does.

seventeen feels like the silence that comes after sending a text,
but never getting a response.
like looking across the room,
only to meet his disgusted gaze.

seventeen feels like things are getting serious now
but you’re not ready to accept that.
it’s the ache of knowing you’ve outgrown this place
but you’re simply not ready to let it go.

seventeen feels like boys that love me
but they wouldn’t if they knew me at all.
loving one that’s only falling apart,
who took a piece of me with him when he left.

seventeen feels like knowing you’ll miss this,
but not being quite sure why you would.

she’s not in broken pieces.
she’s whole.
like she’s never had to tape herself back together just to get through a day.
her stomach is flat,
but all that’s flat about me
is my humor.
when i try to be enough,
and still fall short.

she’s hilarious.
she knows what to say, always.
how to make people laugh,
how to make him feel heard,
how to end a fight
with a kiss or a joke.
me?
i freeze.
i shut down.
i say the wrong thing,
or nothing at all.

she can argue with him
and still make him feel loved.
i argue and feel like
i’ve already lost.
she knows how to be fire and warmth.
i’m just scared of being
too much heat,
or not enough.

she can fill his bed
like it’s made for her.
like she belongs there.
i flinch at the thought,
afraid my body isn’t
something that could hold comfort.
she fits into all the places
i don’t.

he rests his head on her shoulder,
like it’s the only place peace lives.
with me,
he only watches from a distance,
like i’m something delicate he can break,
or something heavy
he’s too tired to carry.
i am.

she is everything i’m not.
she is confidence,
and comfort,
and beauty,
and laughter.
she is ease.
and i?
i’m just a pause between heartbeats.
i’m just trying to be worth
the space i take up.
she is everything.
and i…
i don’t know what i am.

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.

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

i thought today
maybe things were feeling better.
a little lighter.

but it’s not true.
not anymore.
things are still heavy.

and im
s
  i
   n
    k
     i
      n
       g

she called me a ****,
as if the word could sink into my skin
and define the person i am.

but i am not that
(couldn’t be farther than that).
i long for what she can’t see—
a love that is honest,
a connection without walls,
a trust that doesn’t crumble
when the world’s gaze turns sharp.

her words aren’t true,
but they still found their mark,
like arrows tipped with shadows.
it hurts,
not because i believe her,
but because she believed
that tearing me down
was easier than understanding me.

i am not what she said.
i am someone
who loves deeply,
who craves meaning in a world
that so often refuses to give it.
she doesn’t know me,
but i know myself.
snd that has to be enough.

and yet, what hurts the most
is that she knows me.

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.