I think I’ve always found it easier to pretend you never existed,
Like a side character in a story I barely remember,
Convincing myself that if you were never real,
Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt.

I understand—you left when I was a child.
I understand—you and my mother were never meant to last.
But who gave you the right to decide
That leaving meant forgetting?

Maybe I was never important enough,
Just another name lost in the shadow of your other daughters.
But tell me, was it my fault?
Was I the reason you walked away?

I hate that I don’t know you at all,
Not your birthday, not your voice, not even your favorite color.
A father—someone meant to stand behind his daughter,
A backbone, a shelter
But I had none of that.
I lacked that.

And now, all I have is the echo of your absence,
An empty space where love should have been,
A stranger I was supposed to call father.

My whole life, I’ve seen best friends
who would take a bullet for each other,
best friends who are inseparable,
best friends who drift through different circles of friends
but always find their way back to each other.

Best friends who speak in glances,
who know each other’s hearts like their own,
who, in a room full of people,
would choose each other every time.

But me?

I am the one who’s never anyone’s first choice,
The one never chosen in a room full of faces,
The one always left waiting,
Always left behind.

I am the afterthought, the spare friend,
the easily replaceable one,
the one whose presence is felt
only when everyone else is gone.

I was always an option, never a choice.

Never the first thought,
Never the last thought,
Never the thought at all.

Lately, life feels like a roundabout.
I’m standing at the center,
Surrounded by exits—
None of them seem right.

Every path I take
Leads to dead ends,
Littered with obstacles
I can’t climb or move around.

Negativity fills the air,
Heavy and unrelenting.
Getting out of my comfort zone?
It doesn’t feel like an option.

Because what’s the point,
When every road just circles back
To where I began?

Maybe the problem is—
I have no destination.
No place I want to be,
No purpose to drive me forward.

Without a purpose,
There’s no motivation.
And choosing a path?
It feels like too much.

During the day,
The sunlight—
My friends
My family
Guides me, gives me strength.

But at night,
The darkness returns.
I’m lost again,
With no light to lead the way.

So here I remain,
Stuck at the center of the roundabout,
Going nowhere.

You wouldn’t ever know what it’s like,
Sitting in silence,
While they talk about fathers—
The ones who stay,
The ones who love without question.

They speak of sacrifices,
Of arms that shield and words that soothe,
Of being treated like princesses,
Given the world without needing to ask.

But me?
I can only imagine.
I’ve learned to fill the silence with smiles,
To nod along, as if I know the feeling.
But deep down,
I carry the weight of your absence.

How do you grieve for something
You’ve never truly had?
How do you explain the hollow space
Where love should have been?

You wouldn’t ever know what it’s like—
To grow up wishing for a hero,
And realizing,
You had to become your own.

I think I made a mistake,
Choosing my heart over my mind for you.
What made you so special?
I’ll never know.

You broke me,
Shattered my heart into a million pieces.
Then you came back—
An apology, empty and unexplained.

And still, my heart opened,
Without hesitation,
Without pause.

I regret the moment
I allowed myself to love you.
Why you?

I promised never to give those eight letters
To anyone unworthy.
Promised never to fall
Unless I was ready.

But I went for it.
All for you.
A single glance, a fleeting smile—
And I was yours.

Why?
Because you were the one
Who made my heart feel alive.

I tell myself—
I’m losing my mind.
Heartbroken still, after all these years.
Why does it linger, this ache,
Like a shadow I can’t outrun?

People drift,
Pulling away like waves receding,
Leaving me stranded.
Why do I break so easily now,
Over things so small?

This hurts.
It really, really hurts.

I’m surrounded by kind faces,
Voices that say they care,
Yet I’ve never felt so alone.
Is it because she’s gone—
The one I trusted most?
Or is it me,
Afraid to let the walls fall again?

I can’t even make sense of my words.
I’m that lost.
It feels like the universe itself
Has turned against me.

Maybe I deserve this.
But do I deserve this much pain?

People love to hurt me.
They leave.
For what?
Why do they find joy in my breaking?

Why am I so scared,
So anxious all the time?
Why does a room full of people
Feel like a battlefield?
Why can’t I feel normal,
Even for a moment?

Why does their presence
Tear me apart from the inside?
What is happening to me?

I don’t understand.
I don’t understand at all.

This year,
I realized the amount of people I lost,
Not to fights, not to anger—
Just distance,
Growing quietly like something fading away,
Now, we don’t talk anymore.

Was it their fault?
Or mine?
Or was it no one’s fault at all?
Maybe some stories
Are meant to end this way.

I’ve always dreamed of a friend to call mine.
Not in a strange way,
But like in the movies,
Where the main character has their person—
The one who stays
Through thick and thin.

But me?
I’ve always been the side character.
The third wheel in a trio,
The face in a crowd,
Never the one anyone chooses.

Even when surrounded by laughter,
I was alone.
I didn’t see it then,
But I do now.

There were moments, fleeting and sweet,
When I thought, I found my people.
But “my people” never lasted.

And when I thought I’d found them,
It ended—
Always faster than I imagined.
They disappeared,
Or they let me down.
No in-between.

This is how it’s always been,
And deep down,
I don’t think it’ll ever change.