i hurt people who love me,
i lie to stay afloat.
i say i’m fine
when i’m folding in on myself.
i miss him,
even when i shouldn’t.
i want too much.
i disappear.
i think i’m a bad person.
maybe i am.
maybe i’m not.
either way,
i can’t seem to stop.

i can’t hold your hand,
but i’m holding the thought of you,
hoping it’s enough
to steady you
through the ache.

i told them i was tired.
they said “get some sleep.”
but i didn’t mean
tired like that.
i meant tired
like i don’t want to be alive.
but no one
heard me.

i tell my mom i’m fine
with a smile that tastes like rust.
every “i’m okay”
tightens something in my chest.

i nod in therapy
when she asks if the thoughts are gone.
they’re not.
but i’m tired of proving i’m hurting.

i say i haven’t talked to you,
and maybe that’s true
if you don’t count dreams,
or the poems you still live in.

i used to think lying
was a way to keep the peace.
but now it just feels
like bleeding beneath a bandaid.

and i don’t want to lie anymore.
not to her.
not to them.
not to myself.

i used to think love was fire,
bright, consuming,
burning everything it touched.

but with you,
it felt more like daylight,
quiet and golden,
something that warmed
without asking for anything back.

you had those soft gold eyes,
like morning sun
on a window,
and i wanted to be that light,
the kind you reach for,
the kind that stays.

i was sunshine, once.
i know that.
the kind that made you squint
but smile anyway.
but maybe even sunshine
can overstay its welcome,
leave behind a burn
you never meant to carry.

and now i wonder
if i’m just a sunburn memory,
the kind that lingers
long after the warmth is gone.

the sun loved me a little too long,
and now i carry it,
this quiet burn,
like the way your name still lingers
even when i don’t say it out loud.

my skin will peel
in places where it once glowed,
the way feelings fade
but never quite leave.
and maybe i knew
i’d get hurt,
but i stayed outside anyway.

because sometimes,
you miss the warmth
more than you mind the pain.
this is how love lingers,
not in fire,
but in afterlight.

i laughed today
but joy is light
and i am not.
so when the quiet came,
i sank like stone.

you’re not mine anymore,
but sometimes i forget.
i still turn toward the sound
of your name like instinct,
like how birds are drawn north.

you were saturday mornings and saxophone solos,
the quiet buzz during swim meets,
the boy who held my words
like they were something sacred.

i still see your eyes
in coffee cups and the sun,
still hear your laugh
in the songs i swore
i’d stop listening to.

some loves don’t leave.
and missing you,
it’s a kind of music now.
not always loud.
just always playing.

i used to be a whole person,
but now fragments of me
are in living within
people i don’t call.

my “friends,”
they’re planning a trip,
all joy and noise,
asking me my availability.
i don’t want to go.
they don’t know
i take off my smile at night,
like a soaked-through costume.
they don’t know
the girl in their group chat
is just a mask i wear
so i don’t disappear.
they have never realized
every night i struggle
to make it to morning.

i don’t think i can love you any more.
but i don’t think i can love you anymore.

emotional pain doesn’t have a home,
but physical pain does.
that’s why i cut.

you are piano melodies.
every note soft, deliberate, aching.
i know your music by heart
but i can’t touch the keys.

your hair is chaos
in the most gentle way.
messy brown strands
i want to smooth down
just once.
just once.

your eyes.
golden brown and searching,
like they’re always looking
for something deeper,
just never in me.

and when you smile,
the world gets quiet.
it’s not a metaphor,
it’s just what happens.
like the sky pauses
to listen to you be kind.

your laugh sounds like music.
not the sad kind, either.
the kind that fills a room
and makes it feel warmer.
and god,
i wish it were for me.

but this is how i love you:
at a distance.
in silence.
from behind the safety
of poems and timing
and unspoken things.

you are not mine.
but some loves don’t ask
for ownership,
just the privilege
of still feeling them.

i went to the doctor
to check in on my meds.
i told her that nothing felt different.
she celebrated like it was good.
i don’t think it is.
i think i need something to change,
right now.

she begged me to show her
the cuts stacked neatly on my leg.
but i wouldn’t.
no one should see my pain,
not when she’ll look at it
with disgust.

i found
i couldn’t look her in the eye.
this is because
she had brilliant brown eyes,
and they reminded me of yours.
i think they’re gorgeous
but it also hurt to see.

i wish we could still talk.
maybe i’ll say hello to you,
but i don’t know what else i’d say
and if you would even
want to hear from me.
don’t forget,
you can always reach out.

school is almost over,
and i’m glad.
summer means working my *** off,
and summer means
i don’t have to see you
and feel that pain in my chest.

i miss you i miss you.
despite your comment on my poem,
you’re not some stupid boy.
and i know that
because i am not a stupid girl.
i wouldn’t give my heart
to someone who didn’t deserve it.

“can’t repeat the past?” he said.
“why of course you can.”
and god, i believed him.
still do, most days.
because i see you
in every flash of spring,
in the gold glint of things
i was never meant to hold.

the green light still blinks,
even if it’s just in my head,
a soft pulse saying
you were real,
you were mine,
once.

i built my love the way he did:
with trembling hands,
and too much hope.
like maybe if i hurt enough,
time will fold in on itself,
and we’ll be sixteen
and invincible
again.

but dreams die slow,
especially the beautiful ones.
and i’m still reaching across water
for something
that won’t reach back.

i keep thinking:
the past isn’t dead
if i still ache for it.
but maybe that’s just part
of the story i keep telling myself,
a softer lie
than letting go.

i can’t decide if it’s weird
to write these still,
knowing that you could read them.
only if you wanted to.
i can’t decide.

but i’ll write anyway,
because if i can’t talk to you,
i might as well write.
we talk a little bit,
but i can’t decide if it’s nice
or if it hurts.

but we’ll talk anyway.
a little bit i guess.
i don’t know.
today is just
a day of indecision.
isn’t that my whole problem?

the first time,
i couldn’t decide if
i should follow my heart,
or listen to my family.
i chose my family.
i regret it every day.

the second time,
i couldn’t decided what i wanted.
did i want you?
or just your friendship?
i was confused.
but i’m not anymore.

the third time,
i couldn’t make the decision.
i couldn’t do what had to be done
so that we could be us.
together.
i’m ******* stupid.
and now it’s too late.

i could’ve sworn
love started with an s
and ended with an n,
four letters that felt
like home in my mouth.

your name,
a prayer i whispered
into my pillowcase,
half-hope, half-memory.

i still trace it
on foggy windows
and in the quiet parts
of my day.

i keep forgetting
how to forget you.

i read,
reread,
your poems not once,
not twice,
over and over
like a mantra.
sometimes a little bit of you
is enough.
and sometimes,
it’s not.

i curled up in my mother’s bed
because i knew what i’d do if i didn’t.
she didn’t ask why.
she just let me stay.
she knew why,
and i think it hurt her to know.
but not as much
as it would’ve hurt
if i hadn’t stayed.
mothers know things.
like how silence can bleed.
and how company
can be a tourniquet.

this has been the longest 47 hours of my life

i read your poem.
even though it made my heart hurt,
it’s nice to know you
don’t hate me.
i don’t think.

it’s funny,
10 things i hate about you
is one of my favorite movies.
so many people say
that i look like the lead.

i wonder if you read my poems.
if you analyze them
they way that i analyze yours.
i wonder if you try to keep up
or if it hurts too bad.
believe me,
it hurts.

it’s almost two weeks
on my medicine,
and i feel no different.
i guess that’s expected
but i’m just tired
of nothing changing.

i have therapy tomorrow.
i’m already dreading it.
she kept saying
“promote awareness”
as if i didn’t know
she was reading off a script.

dad had tears in his eyes
when mom told him i had cut again
he doesn’t cry
not really
not unless something’s falling apart
and this time
it was me

he said why
again and again
like the question could fix it
like i could fix it
but i just stared
felt the words press against my throat
and stay there
tight
screaming
quiet

so i said
i can’t just stop being sad
and that’s all
because it’s the only truth i had

mom gave him a look
like don’t push her
she’s already broken
already bleeding
already tired of explaining
what can’t be
explained

and then
she hugged me
really hugged me
like she didn’t care
that she hates hugs
held me
like she wanted
to keep me here
keep me whole
even if she couldn’t

and she said
we know
like it meant something
like knowing was enough

and maybe
for a moment
i
believed
it

why do some people feel so sad?
why am i one of those people?

i miss people who are still alive,
and i don’t know what that means.

one sits next to me in class,
another a row behind me,
and one living in another state.
they all feel equally far.

the door didn’t slam,
they just stopped knocking,
while i keep mine open,
just in case they remembered where i live.

i see their faces in pictures
and flinch like it’s a memory.
they look happy.
they look happier than when they were with me.

maybe i’m too easy to forget,
or too hard to keep.
i can’t determine
if i’m too much or too little.

they laugh with other people,
not cruelly—just without me.
and i tell myself that’s okay,
but i still search for my name in their smile.

i miss people who are still alive,
and it feels like i’m mourning
something everyone else insists is fine.
i suffer in a silence only i can hear.

i know what absence is,
it’s in the spaces
they used to fill
without even trying.

i tell myself you weren’t that kind,
not really.
not the way i remember.
maybe i just needed you
to be more than you were.
i practice unlearning you,
every day.
but then
i look at you
and every lie i rehearsed
falls apart in my mouth.
you still ruin me,
just by existing.

i had my last ap exam today.
i did a good job,
not like you care.
and then afterward we went out to eat
i got fettuccine alfredo,
no shrimp though.

i did that band leadership interview too.
i didn’t see your name
on the list.
my interview went well,
doc gushed about my talent,
i liked that.

mom made me give up
all the knives
and pocket knives i’ve collected.
but what she doesn’t know
is that i still have the pencil sharpener.
i won’t use it though.

it’s already been a week
of these so-called happy pills,
i don’t feel any different.
i wish i would.
or i wish i felt
nothing at all.
either or.

i keep telling myself
it only hurts this much right now.
but i think
i’ll be getting over you
my whole life.
i’m tired.
are you?

a month ago
i thought of something
i wanted to tell you
while “the manuscript” played.

but it slipped away
before i could catch it.

today,
same song,
same road,
it came back.

i didn’t say it.
i just drove.

neat red lines
stacked in a column
on my upper thigh.
i remember how you
flinched
when you saw them.
it’s disgusting
but it’s me.

i could’ve skipped the pill.
no one would’ve known.
but i swallowed it anyway,
for my mom,
who cried with me,
for my dad,
who doesn’t always know what to say,
for my sisters,
who still need me around.

for me,
even if i’m not ready to admit it yet.