I have friends.
That’s what I tell myself when I sit with them,
pretending to belong.
But they don’t see me.
Not really.

To them, I’m the quiet one,
The innocent one,
The dumb one.
The child playing at adulthood,
Too naive to understand the world they walk.
They think I don’t notice how they talk down to me,
The way they smile when I speak of my dreams.
Like I’m too soft to notice
the sharpness of their words.

But I am not a child,
And I am not innocent.
I am a girl who learned
How to smile through the ache,
How to laugh through the hollow,
How to pretend that I don’t feel the walls closing in.

They think I’m easy to fool,
That I won’t catch the way they roll their eyes
When I speak of the things I love.
The toys that make me smile,
The lines of  books that cling to my soul,
The songs I bury myself in &
the piano and violin melodies
that feel like home in a world too loud.
All dismissed, waved off, ridiculed,
Labeled childish, unworthy of their time.
Like my joy is an inconvenience to their lives.

But I notice.
I notice everything.
I notice how they’ve built me in their minds—
A fragile thing,
easy to break, easy to ignore.
They have no idea what it’s like to be me.

They don’t know how my hands shake
When I hold back tears in front of them.
They don’t know how many words I swallow
Just to keep the peace,
How many pieces of myself I’ve hidden
To make them more comfortable.

They laugh at me.
Not with me.
They think I don’t see it,
That I don’t feel it—
The subtle cruelty hidden in their jokes,
The way they twist my softness into stupidity.

I am but a pitiful inclusion
of their conversations.
A mere placeholder in their group.
A shadow they barely notice
Until they need to feel smarter, stronger, better.

And I let them.
Because it’s easier to stay quiet,
To let them believe they’re right,
Than to fight against the weight of their indifference.

In the end, I shrink.
I fold myself into something smaller,
Something quieter,
Until I am nothing more than the version they created—
A shadow of myself,
Easy to laugh at, easy to control.

But inside, I’m screaming.
Inside, I’m crying.
Because I don’t know how to explain
What it feels like to be surrounded
And still feel like the loneliest person in the room.

They think they know me.
But how could they?
They’ve never looked past the smile I force,
Never wondered why my hands tremble,
Why my breath falters,
Why my voice sometimes dies in my throat.

I am surrounded by people,
But I am alone in a way I can’t explain.
Alone in the crowd,
Alone in their presence,
Alone in the silence I hide behind.

I sit there, smiling, nodding,
surrounded by their voices,
Their laughter, their noise.
And yet I am alone.
Because they will never understand
the weight I carry,
the weight of a heart that beats in isolation.

I pretend like I don’t care
When they say I’m childish,
That my love for vanilla makes me small.
But inside, I am clawing at my own skin,
Begging for someone to see me—
Not the version of me they created,
But the real me.

Everyone likes vanilla.
I like it a bit more.
But they don’t get it, do they?
How something so simple
can mean everything when you feel so ******* lost.
They mock me for it—
Like it’s some childish obsession,
Like it’s a flaw that I’m drawn to the soft,
The pure,
The things that make me feel whole
In a world that’s always trying to tear me apart.

They look at my quiet smile, my careful hands,
And slap a label on my skin: innocent.
Like I’m some sticker they can peel off,
Stick wherever they please
and forget.

But I am not what they think I am.
I am not a word whispered behind cupped hands,
Not the soft thing they’ve mistaken for weak

I love stickers.
Bright, bold, beautiful things
That I press into notebooks and corners of my world,
Little pieces of colour in the chaos I can’t control.
But I am not a sticker.
I am not something they can pin down,
Label me whatever they ******* want to.
I am what I am,
It is what it is,
so deal with it or leave.

If the consequence of me being me
is loneliness,
then so be it.

I am many things,
But I am not their innocent doll.
I am not a joke,
I am not their fool.
I am not just a sticker.
I am not just their label.
I am a mosaic of cracks and scars,
and one day, I will tear these labels from my skin
and show them the strength they never saw.
Who knows,
maybe they might finally realise,
why hurricanes are named after people.

Too bad they’ll never take the time
to know that.
They’re too busy talking over me,
too busy writing their own stories
on the pages of my silence.

I don’t need their pity.
I don’t need their approval.
But God, sometimes I wish
just one of them would stop
and look at me long enough
to see the storm I carry,
to hear the screams I choke back every day.

Because I am tired of being invisible.
Tired of being their afterthought.
Tired of being underestimated,
of being seen but never known.
I am tired of sitting among friends
and still feeling utterly, completely,
Alone.

And I inevitably find myself wondering —
Will anyone ever know this loneliness?
Will anyone ever stop long enough
to see the girl who hides behind this smile?
Or am I doomed to disappear,
lost in a crowd that never bothered to look closer?

I gave him my silence.
Folded it neatly, like laundry.

I let him keep his name clean,
even when mine was dragged through the dirt.
I swallowed the questions,
the isolation,
the rage,
the aching need for answers—
because they said, “You’ll regret burning bridges.”

But I was the bridge, wasn’t I?
The one he crossed over,
hands in someone else’s hair,
while I was at home
turning myself into a softer place to land.

And I stayed silent—not because he deserved peace,
but because I still loved a version of him
I made up in my mind.
A version where he was whole,
where his hands only knew me,
where his promises weren’t hollow.
I clung to that ghost,
even as the real him shattered me.
I begged the lie to stay,
just a little longer,
stitched together from hope and denial,
until I couldn’t tell the difference
between my dreams and his lies.

I swallowed the shards of my own heart,
telling myself it was love,
even when it tasted like blood.
I thought my silence was a gift,
a sacrifice that meant something.
But all it did was give him freedom
to forget what he’d done,
to walk away clean while I carried
the wreckage of us in my bones.

I didn’t just lose him.
I lost the woman I was before him.
I lost the girl who believed
love was enough to fix the broken,
to heal what didn’t want to be healed.
I shed pieces of myself like dead skin,
all so he could feel lighter,
so he wouldn’t have to carry
the weight of what he did.

I handed him peace
gifted by my surrender,
wrapped in my tears,
tied with the ribbon of my silence.
And what did I get in return?
Nothing.
Not even closure.

Ig no one really knows-
what it’s like,
To kneel in the wreckage he left behind,
and try to stitch yourself together
without knowing which pieces are yours?

He walked away free,
clean,
untouched.
And I’m still here,
wiping the blood from my hands,
wondering if peace is just
a prettier word for defeat.

Maybe I could have fought harder.
Maybe I should have screamed louder.
Maybe then he’d carry some of this weight.
But no—
I chose his peace.
And it broke me.

Now, I sit with this hollow thing
they call closure,
waiting for it to feel like something
other than the echo of your own voice
in an empty room.

Is closure just another word for escape?
Would the silence I crave
feel like theirs?
Or would it finally, finally be mine?

But closure doesn’t grow in graves.
And I’m tired of planting myself there.
Every unspoken word cuts,
every swallowed scream burns.
They tell me to let go—
like I haven’t tried.
God, I’ve tried.

Let it go?
It’s not something you hold;
it’s something that holds you—
by the throat,
by the ribs,
by every nerve that remembers
what you’re trying so hard to forget.

What if my closure means breaking
the peace they built on my ruin?

Cuz Closure ain’t quiet.
It’s a scream in the dark,
a demand to be heard,
even if no one is listening.

If it’s any consolation,
some of us hear it,
loud & clear,
even in your silence,
and that all that matters tbh.

**** them who judge us on lies fed by him,
May they one day get a piece of the truth.
May their regret and their guilt burn their walls down,
Let them choke on the ashes of everything they thought they knew about us.
And may the smoke carry the message on.

You weren’t silent to save him—you were silent to save
the illusion you built.
The man you thought he could be.

And maybe that’s the closure.
Not a clean break,
not an apology,
not a chance to rewrite the past,
no…not even justice—
but to finally understand
that some bridges deserve to burn.

That I deserve to rise
from the ashes of who I was,
without carrying the weight
of who he’ll never be.

Let him have his peace.
I’m taking back my fire…

a phoenix reborn.

How can anyone
judge me?
I'm not an external
but an internal identity.

Sure as death
Each shallow breath
Gets steadily
Less steady
As I see you
Drift into
The sweet eternal
Eddy.

The presence of my soul
stands before me
begging for mercy
to become
who?
someone worthy
in this journey
so-called life.

Take a look at this girl
Her hairs a mess
And she cant take care of herself
Unless someone else does

Take a look at this girl
Biologically she’s cis
Mentally she wants to be a boy
Spiritually she never wanted to exist

Take a look at this person
She wanted to live free without anyone
But she breaks when no ones there for her
So she has no choice but to stay with everyone

Take a look at this person
She never had a childhood nor fun
Missing out, she’s mourning for that loss
But doesn’t know what she actually missed

Take a look at this human
She doesn’t understand feelings but pretends to
She has friends but was never there for them
She knows she needs to learn but doesn’t want to

Take a look at this human
Can you even call her a human?
Can it even identify as a human?
When it did nothing to be human at all

Take a look at this
It’s state it’s in is their own fault
Wishing for everything but doing nothing for it
Now it’s rotting in bed doing nothing but regret

Take a look at this
This shouldn’t be a human
This isn’t a human

I love it when you're away
My thoughts turn so light
And so gay
I float on a cloud
Unfettered
By fear and doubt
Yes I love it when you're away

But then you come back.