i wish someone would say
“lizie, don’t cut yourself anymore,”
and they’d want to say
“don’t hurt yourself,”
but what they should actually say is
“every time you carve your skin
you hurt everyone you love.
your family,
friends,
mom, dad, sisters.”
except actually,
my family cares,
but my friends haven’t reached out
since i told them i was sick.
but i think this would help.
this is what i wish.

i drain him.
i know it.
and still,
i stay.

i say i’m trying,
but really,
i’m cracking.
i’m drowning
with his lungs
in my chest.

next i’ll bleed
through his arms,
sob
through his eyes,
wreck
what’s left
of his heart.

i was never
meant
to be held.

i don’t blame you
for not reading the things i write.
you’ve made a boundary,
clear, kind,
and i’ll tried my best to honor it.

but still,
sometimes i wish
you could see how often
your name falls between the lines
when i don’t mean for it to.

not out of obsession,
not because i’m holding on,
but because love like that
doesn’t vanish,
it lingers in the ink.

and if you ever do read them,
if the words ever find their way to you,
i hope they don’t feel like a betrayal.
i hope they just feel like
truth.

shoveling the snow at 10 tonight,
because your parents aren’t home,
and i guess that’s what you do
when you’re 17.

you turn your back,
feel the sharp betrayal
of a snowball,
barreling from your sister’s hands.

grabbing the sleds,
saying just once.
is that what you do when you’re 17?
or am i still a child?

you walk the neighborhood.
the cold bites, exhilarating.
but the snow feels heavier somehow,
emphasizing the absence
of something you can’t name.

the loud girl in class
the quiet one online
the secret mental struggles
the aching to feel fine

the too proud athlete
the one who skips PE
the weight of expectations
the fear of never being free

the girl who never studies
the one who always tries
the cracks beneath the surface
the truth behind their eyes

the third of four sisters
the one in their glow
the pressure to be noticed
the reality they’ll never know

body dysmorphia is a strange thing
it makes getting dressed hard
and loving your body even harder
yet i wish, in the darkest parts of me
that i have it—
if only to explain
why i look like this

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.

“you can go,” i told him,
“if you need to.
if you want to.”

he didn’t say anything for a moment.
“i know i can,” he said.
“but i wouldn’t. ever.”

and maybe that’s what hurts the most,
knowing he’s choosing to stay
in something this heavy.

i’m trying so hard
to do the right thing
for everyone.
but someone’s going to bleed for it.
i think we both will.

i just don’t want him
to hate me for it.
to look back and wish he hadn’t.
to wish he’d walked away when he could.

because the truth is,
i care about him
more than i care about myself.
and that’s what makes this
so hard to hold.

i don’t write about you
as often as i used to.
i feel sorry about that.
you still make everything
feel like a love story.
even when my hands shake,
even when the days are heavy,
you hold me like the ending
could still be happy.

i love you in quieter ways now,
in glances, in waiting,
in letting myself stay.
and that matters more
than any poem ever could.
but still, i’ll try to write you one
anyway.