⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️
(this one hurt to write)

I forgot the sound of your voice.
Yet ironically,
in a room full of people,
I’d still recognize it.

I forgot the warmth of your hug.
Yet once in a while,
I still feel the ghost of your presence
enveloping me.

When I still held you,
I begged to meet your shadow.
I wanted to understand
the pieces of you
that were hidden.

You, of course, denied.
“You’d despise it.”

My love—
why would I ever despise anything
that belonged to you?

Did I not prove to you
time and time again
that in all lifetimes, I’d say “yes”?
In all timelines and universes, I’d love you—
not for who you showed,
but for who you hid.

I beg you.
Tell me where I went wrong.
A river of why’s and how’s
floods my mind like a current
I didn’t have a boat for.
I drown
in the despair of questions.
“If I had done better…”

Please.
Tell me what I did wrong.
I beg—
could I have been enough?

I submitted myself,
entirely,
wholly.

I worshiped you
like a temple of sanctity.
Was that not enough?
I beg you, dear—
tell me.
What went wrong?

I wanted so desperately
to understand you,
to carve my skin
with every phrase you found
too insignificant to say.
Every
“I love you.”
“I see you.”

And if I could,
I’d rip myself apart,
piece by piece,
to make you feel whole.

You promised,
at the altar—
“Until death do us part.”
Why did you mean it
so soon?

If only you had told me
you were hurting.
I could’ve helped.
It might not have been enough,
but I would’ve done something.
Maybe then
you wouldn’t have jumped.
Maybe,
just maybe,
I wouldn’t have flipped down
your portrait that hung proudly
above the fireplace—
because it hurt too much
to see it.

Occasionally,
I still visit the bridge.
And it’s like I can still hear
the ambulance
as they drag you
out of the river.

And so I think to myself—
if only
you would have told me.

I would’ve found a way.
There are therapists,
resources,
help.
I could help.

But I won’t let anyone say
it was a shallow thing
you did.

You had finally found the source,
the cause,
and you just wanted it to stop…

You were pointing,
exclaiming:
“Here.
Here is where the pain is.”

From then on, I knew—
you would be gone
before I knew it.

Now your voice whispers
like a bittersweet memory
I swore I had forgotten.
Your sheets still smell like you,
no matter how many washes,
it’s still the same vanilla perfume you
begged me to buy you.

One last time,
darling,
whisper to me,
“I love you…”

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️

Red was the color of the water
when I jumped into a river
that was too shallow for me to dive into.

In those short 5 seconds,
I soared through the winds.
The air pressure nearly enough to rip me to shreds.

Those 5 seconds when my skin peeled off from my back,
I grew wings.

They lit on fire,
and I burned with them,
and it was almost soothing.

The pain was a reminder that
I was alive,
even if it was only for 5 short seconds.

In the brink of death,
I felt the most alive I had in years.

I don't know if it was the wind
or the fact that I was burning.
But in those five seconds,
I was a human.
Something I had been alienated from my whole life.

I was dead before I hit the gravel.
My body twisted in all types of different directions,
and when the police found me,
they had already pronounced me as deceased.

Healing means being continuously broken,
until one day you find yourself unexpectedly getting back up.

It’s not cute,
or aesthetic,
it’s hurtful.

Those nights in the bathroom floor where you finally release the tension of unshed tears.
That one time you shamefully texted your friend “I relapsed”.

The scars of my arms are checkpoints of both victories and losses.
They all cary immense weight of battles I was too weak to fight.
Images of memories I will never be able to erase.

Sometimes healing means being afraid yet doing it anyway.
Pushing forward without a reason whatsoever.

It’s messy,
inconsistent,
and painful.

But life is simply an everlasting journey of healing, growing.
The best part of life is exactly that— growth.
The constant journey of becoming better than who we were yesterday.

But if you don’t heal what hurt you,
you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.

I wish to love you religiously.
To find my religion in the cracks of your lips.
Feel your holiness through your callused palm.

I’d worship the temple of your soul.
Nurturing and loving,
a spiritual healing
restricted to the sanctity of your love.

Salvation meant existing by your side,
fulfillment was being your shadow.
Purity meant being solely yours.

And if hell meant eternity with you,
then I’d burn the rest of my life with the fire you started within me.

If it was a sin to love,
then I have become the most immoral person in your name.

I continue loving you religiously,
submitted…
entirely,
wholly
to you.

The room was cold
but the air was warm.
The room was filled with people,
and yet I still felt alone.

I sat in the corner, observing people:
the way they spoke,
the curl of their lips when they laughed,
even the darkest secrets they wished to hide—
fake smiles,
bitter tears,
toxic love.
I observed everyone except myself.

In the corner, it was dark.
My skin felt molded to the wall I leaned on.
All the chatter in the room,
thinking so much,
yet feeling so little.

I looked around the corner,
taking in all its qualities.
It was the only part of the room
where light didn’t seem to shine—
a prison,
isolated.

I couldn’t help but wish
people observed me the way I observed them.
Wanting to be seen is a dark feeling—
aching for love
without begging for attention.
In the quiet moments,
I realize I might be alone.

This corner is my safe space,
my shield from
fake people behind masks
and the dark jokes they laugh at.
But it is also my cage—
the reason I am concealed,
isolated from the rest.
Who knew my place of comfort
was also the cause of my loneliness?

I need to get out.
Five simple words,
but they feel hard to swallow.
This corner holds me back—
from experiences,
people,
hurt,
happiness.
I need to get out.

I muster the courage to stand.
I take a deep breath
and embrace my surroundings:
five things I feel,
four things I see,
three things I touch,
two things I taste,
one thing I want:
freedom.

I step into the brightly lit room.
The place feels unrecognizable,
a world beyond my isolation.
The people almost seem—
friendly?

I make rockets of my legs
and approach a girl.
Her name is Rose.
She has two piercings,
three friends,
four sisters,
five dogs,
and a million dreams.

She tells me her story.
I almost feel pity.
She struggled growing up—
two homes,
a loving mom,
an alcoholic dad.
But in her story, I find comfort.
Knowing others struggle too,
I realize sadness doesn’t like loneliness.

I glance back at the corner
I once called home.
Now I see it clearly—
it was a prison all along.

I’ve said many lies in my lifetime.
But one of the most used ones was
‘I’m fine’

“How are you doing?”
I’m fine.
“How was your day?”
It’s fine.
“Are you okay?”
I’m. Fine.

And I too, desperately tried to make myself believe that.
I grasped to the possibility that
I. Was. Fine.

Even if I struggled or
I self destructed,
I was fine.

In the process of domestication,
I shut the possibility of
emotional unwellness.

I wanted nothing to do with the
bitter reality,
and the stinging truth,
that maybe:
I wasn’t fine.

So when someone reached out their hand
and offered to walk with me
through the flames.
I hesitated.
The idea of help was almost foreign to me.

I rejected their help,
because I thought I didn’t deserve it.
But it only hurt us more.

In the end I convinced myself.
I was born to die.