I said I was fine,
like it was a song I was born to sing—
soft enough to soothe others,
loud enough to drown myself.

Childhood felt like walking
through endless hallways,
fluorescent lights humming above me,
walls echoing names I never answered to.
Invisible, but useful—
like a chair no one sits in
but never throws away.

I was the steady one,
the shoulder,
the joke at midnight
when someone else needed a reason
not to fall apart.
But I was a museum
of silent collapses,
no visitors allowed.

Growing up felt less like rising,
more like disappearing with better posture.
You hit eighteen and suddenly
you’re just supposed to be whole.
But no one saw the cracks
behind my “of course I’m okay.”

Now I sit with silence like an old friend—
not because I hate the world,
but because I learned
the safest place to cry
was always alone.

You grow up lonely,
you grow into it,
like skin you never shed.
And maybe I just want a room
with no doors,
no questions,
no saving.

Because when you’ve spent
your whole life being the lighthouse,
you forget
what it’s like to be found.