#softache
Blue was mine first.
Oceans wore it loudly,
flowers borrowed it gently,
and I kept collecting it everywhere I went,
in paint, in skies, in the corner of my eye.
It was my favorite kind of calm,
my favorite kind of spark,
my favorite constant.
Then you appeared,
quiet and unannounced,
and suddenly the color had competition.
Not because you wore blue,
but because you embodied the parts of it
that I could never describe,
the joy that hits too hard,
and the sadness that refuses to explain itself.
Now every shade I love feels a little lesser
and a little truer
all at once.
Blue still belongs to me,
but it keeps pointing toward you,
and I haven’t figured out
if that’s beautiful
or if it hurts.
Jan 20
Jan 20, 2026 at 2:53 AM UTC
And maybe,just maybe
If I keep pretending
Long enough
Happiness might forget
It was never mine
And decide to stay.
And if it doesn't
Atleast the light I borrowed
Kept me warm
For one more day.
Jul 7, 2025
Jul 7, 2025 at 3:58 PM UTC
We said we’d never stop believing
in fairies,
in kindness,
in return phone calls.
We swore we’d never
become like them.
The adults
with milky eyes
and calendars
and knives
they only use for mail.
You said we’d grow up
but stay soft.
Like peaches.
Like lullabies.
You pulled your own tooth out
in second grade
just to see if the blood felt like something.
It didn’t.
But you didn’t say that out loud.
I held your hand
and told you it meant
you were brave.
You said the tooth fairy would bring you
everything you circled
in The American Girl Catalog.
You got two dollars
and a cavity.
Welcome to Earth.
I still have some of my baby teeth
rattling around in a film canister,
in the same box as my First Communion Dress
and my Princess Diana Beanie Baby.
I thought I was just saving pieces.
I never knew which parts of girlhood
were meant to be disposable.
As if saving them
meant I hadn’t lost
the rest.
Apr 24, 2025
Apr 24, 2025 at 9:58 AM UTC
You look like the life I wanted
when I was pretending I wasn’t dying.
She’s beautiful, obviously,
and it’s not like I’m still trying—
I don’t miss you.
I miss the girl I thought I’d get to be
if you loved me right.
Do you ever
ache so privately
it feels impolite?
Because I do—
in airports where I don’t arrive,
in checkout lines I barely survive,
on Wednesdays, laced with something sour,
in stairwells meant for girls to cower,
in dresses hung with rosary thread,
worn to forgive what wasn’t said.
I am so well-behaved now.
I nod. I smile. I bite down.
I curtsy in crisis. I don’t make a scene.
I bleach my longing till it gleams.
I’m not still hurt, I’m just rewired.
I’m not that mad, I’m just so tired.
I’ve kissed the quiet on both cheeks—
but I riot in my lucid weeks.
I’ve made peace with playing dead,
but some nights I come back red—
in dreams that loop,
in memory's choir,
where the girl kept smiling
while walking through fire.
You look like the life I lied about
when I swore I didn’t mind.
You should hear what I don’t say about you.
It rhymes sometimes.
Apr 8, 2025
Apr 8, 2025 at 11:27 AM UTC
He once told me
he wanted to die in a place
that looked like a poem.
I told him
I wanted to live
like I was one.
We were doomed by aesthetics—
too many soft glances,
not enough spine.
He held my wrist like a snow globe
but shook me too hard.
He said I was all feeling,
no logic.
As if logic ever begged anyone to stay.
Once,
he told me I reminded him
of a girl in a painting.
I should’ve asked
what happened to her
after the gallery closed.
I used to count his heartbeats
when he slept,
just to know something
inside him still worked.
I wore my prettiest dress
to the argument—
just in case
he needed reminding
that I’m not easy
to walk away from.
He looked at me
like a cliff he might leap from
or photograph.
I stopped saying his name
and started writing
in second person.
It still felt like calling him home.
Even now,
I write you into metaphors
so I can pretend
you were never real—
just a concept,
a cautionary tale,
a ghost that rhymed.
You wanted tragedy.
I wanted truth.
We got
whatever this was.
Apr 4, 2025
Apr 4, 2025 at 10:29 AM UTC