"When's the last time you ate"
you ask,
a concerned look on your face.

I can feel your eyes
staring through me
like lasers—
like you can see beneath the smile I’ve glued on,
like you already know
what I’m thinking
before I say a word.

I know it’s coming from care,
but it doesn’t feel supportive.

It feels like judgment.
Like being caught
in a moment I didn’t agree to share.

How do I explain to you
that I am terrified of my own reflection—
that I have to force myself
to look in the mirror,
my skin crawling
with distaste,
disappointment,
and the kind of quiet hatred
you’re never supposed to admit?

How do you tell someone
that you shower in the dark—
not to save electricity,
not for relaxation—
but because it’s the only time
you can’t hide from the truth?

Because if you did,
you’d have to confront it:
the imperfections
that live in every inch of your skin.
The war zone
that is your body.

I sigh.

Because there is no real way
to show you what it feels like—
to grow so tired
of living in this body
that your skin
literally crawls.

Like something inside of you
is thrashing
to get out.
Like every cell
is fighting the prison
you’ve been given.

Like your spirit
has grown too big
for this haunted house of flesh,
and it’s begging
to burst through the seams.

When your body feels hot
and sweaty
and wrong—
so wrong—
you start to wonder
if anything
could make it stop.

And for a second,
you'd do anything
to escape it.
To shed it.
To stop existing
inside of it.

Because there’s a kind of pain
that doesn’t scream.
It crawls.
It whispers.
It infects.
It lives under your skin
like a parasite
and tells you,
every single day:
you are unlovable.

And I wish
I could show you that feeling.

But there are no words
that make a body feel like home
once it already feels
like a trap.