i stare at a mirror for the fiftieth time tonight yet i still dont recognize the face peering back at me.
my hands are detached from my arms which are detached from my torso which i cant tell is mine anymore
my head is all i know.
but whose desperate eyes are those?
a shaking hand makes its way up, up, up to my hair,
tugs at it experimentally.
a sharp flash of pain.
i can trust my head.
fingertips trace along soft flesh and they make contact with a bruised knee.
when did it get this purple? since when did i bruise so easily?
my body feels more and more foreign by the day.
why must i stay within the confines of these fat legs, these heavy arms, this bulging stomach?
why can i not tell the thickness of my own arm? the shape of my own hips?
why must i be this way?

it's kind of funny because for how much you love writing
and for how much i like to spill my emotions all over a keyboard before they make their way out of my mouth,
i never really wrote anything about you.

the world played a pretty **** cruel trick on me when it decided i'd want you, i think.
it knew it'd never happen.
i knew it'd never happen.
everyone else knew it'd never happen.
but **** can a girl dream!

id daydream about how one day, maybe, just maybe, you'd tuck the hair behind my ear and smile at me
or how maybe one day i'd trace your collarbones with my lips as we tried not to make any noise
or even about how we'd wear matching shirts and walk around holding hands together.  

sometimes i really thought it could happen.
you'd do certain things, say words that i thought could mean something else, hug me for what i thought was a little longer than you did anyone else.
i was wrong.
you were just my favorite and i thought i was yours.
i should've known that your heart's too big to bother with that kind of *******.

i hope you don't know.
i want to keep this one hidden from you.
this'll be the only thing, i swear.  
maybe i'll let it out one day as a joke, when you're a bit better and im able to talk to you like i used to again.

sorry for distancing myself.
sorry for being extremely selfish always.
i hope you can find room in your enormous heart to forgive me for what ive done.
i hope that one day i won't feel filthy talking to you or touching you or even looking at you.
i know it was wrong.
im sorry.

i used to think you were logical and cold
yet when i held your hand, it was warm
and when i put my head on your shoulder, you put your head on mine
i used to think you were so quiet and
but i heard you scream next to me as we spun
i thought you were heartless
but you shrugged off your jacket and gloves without a second thought, wrapping me into a bundle.

in another life, we wouldʻve been lovers.
in another life, we wouldnʻt have met.

i never want to go on trips unless youre there. who am i supposed to scream next to and cling onto?
nobody else is half deaf and wont mind. nobody else will grip my hand back on every single ride. nobody else will tie my shoe when i keep on tripping, nobody else will get a matching jacket with me when it costs nearly 200 dollars.
who am i supposed to silently smile with, who am i supposed to laugh with over stupid puns and the packs of cards we both brought?
who am i supposed to text at 2 am, desperately asking for help on a stupid math problem and actually get an answer?

ill miss you and all our awkward fist bumps and hugs.
thanks for being my freshman first semester (and sophomore summer) crush, my kind and intelligent upperclassman, my resident ******* weeb that doesnʻt deserve rights.

youʻll do just fine.

will i ever be satisfied?
why must i yearn for something never there?
what am i looking for? land that cannot be found?
what am i running towards? a mirage of a finish line?
im lost out at sea, with nothing but my blind ambition to keep me company.
the map leading me there is only half-written with no destination.
does the mass of land even exist? will i find it?
i often feel the destination is the measure of my efforts.
without a product, i havenʻt done anything.
will my hard work amount to nothing all my life?

the lights give me a headache-
maybe that’s why im not destined to shine.
my name will never be written in glittering gold because it’ll give me a migraine, will never be announced through thousands of speakers because my ears are sensitive.
perhaps this is why my hands will shake in the cold, because i am not meant to stay on stage alone.
perhaps this is why my feet will trip on nothing, because i wasn’t meant to walk up to the golden pearly gates of glory-
my body rejects any sign of success, fights all attempts at being remembered.
i will never have my name shouted across the world, because it’ll make my throat ache. i will never have my moment of fame, never touch another soul because i don’t like getting my hands *****.
i will never glow like the stars that love me so, that whispered to me in the darkness, will never be painted in the golden light of victory-
all because the lights give me a headache.

painted of moonlight and silver and everything good
you were made to enchant, created for the sole purpose of being beautiful
swimming through the murky water, you were all i could see.

what happens if i scream my name as loud as i can from the rooftops, i plaster it on every wall, i paint it onto the inside of everyone’s eyelids?
will that be enough? will i be remembered?
i have nothing to give- no pennies, no bundles of clothes, no tiny pieces of knowledge.
once i go to sleep, i don’t ever wake up. once i wake up, i don’t go to sleep.
my name is all i have, six words of complete and utter *******.
six words that’ll make you taste the words shoved down my throat, feel the sweat from sprinting from day to day-
my name. it’s all i have.