when i was little, my dad told me
“fortune favors the bold,”
but i thought, for the longest time,
he was saying
“fortune favors the bowl,”
and honestly?
that made more sense to me.
because i’ve never been bold,
but i’ve always been empty.

i learned the right phrase eventually,
but i didn’t do anything with it.
it sat there,
just another thing i wasn’t brave enough to believe in.

i let things happen.
i kept quiet when i should’ve screamed.
i stayed when i should’ve left.
i left when i should’ve stayed.
i waited for signs that never came.

now i hear that phrase and it feels like a joke,
like a door that only opens for people who push it hard enough.
and maybe i could’ve been one of them,
if i wasn’t so scared of being too much,
or not enough.

fortune favors the bold.
and i’ve never been bold.

they think i’m the light
because i smile in crowded rooms
and laugh like nothing’s heavy.
but they don’t see how i carry myself home,
quiet and cracked at the seams.

they think i’m too bright
to belong to shadows,
too warm to understand cold.
they don’t know i keep my coat zipped tight
because winter lives inside me too.

they talk about who i sit with,
like i’m some saint with a healing touch.
but maybe i’m tired
of being the lighthouse
when the waves are drowning me too.

im so done.
so done.
done.
.