i wish the air smelled
like summer did four years ago.
chlorine and asphalt after rain,
sunburnt skin and something sweet.

i spend each winter
longing for those days.
but when summer comes,
it never quite fits right,
like a song i used to love
but can’t remember the lyrics to.

my summers are okay now
but they feel like echoes,
fading, distant,
never loud enough
to drown out the missing.

i wait for my sister’s breath to steady,
for dreams to pull her far from me—
because i can’t let her see this,
can’t let her know
that i am not whole.

im fighting a battle im destined to lose
this fight was never mine to win
next **** up, and im dead
but it’ll be by my own hands

feeling like you’ll always be stuck in your own head
forcing yourself to act normal when you feel anything but
waking up exhausted no matter how much you sleep
seeing people move on without you and wondering if they even noticed
feeling guilty for being sad when you “should” be happy
thinking no one would understand, so you don’t even try to explain
not knowing if you actually want help or if you just want to disappear for a while
the fear that maybe this is just who you are now

maybe it is the end of the world?

i need help but it feels impossible to ask

i mess everything up
i can’t stop crying
i don’t know how to make things right
i’m not supposed to be a person that hurts others
i only hurt myself
i care

i’ve got this perpetual guilt.
i’ve hurt everyone i’ve ever loved,
but still they stay.
not in the way i need —
never when i’m pressing a blade into skin —
but still, they stay.
and still, it’s more than i deserve.

i built this place,
this hell i live in.
brick by brick, mistake by mistake.
i deserve the burn,
the collapse, the ache.
nobody knows the war inside me —
how my mind claws at itself,
and somehow,
i always end up losing.

i think i have perpetual grief, too.
i am always mourning something.
a love, a friend, a version of myself —
i think i’ve never really let go of anything.
everything i’ve ever lost
still lives somewhere in my chest,
heavy and sharp, like glass.

i try to pick up the pieces,
but i’m too tired now —
too hollow, too gone.
and every time i reach for myself,
i cut my hands on what’s left.

she said “i can tell you’re not okay”
like it was a passing thought, a flicker, a footnote,
and then she kept going.

like it didn’t matter that i was sinking.
like it didn’t matter that my lungs were half-full of water.
like it didn’t matter that i was drowning.

she said “i see you breaking” and then broke me harder,
pried my ribs open and set up camp,
tossed her pain into my chest like it had a home there.

and i held it.
i always hold it.
i bear the weight of her like it’s my duty,
like love is carrying her pain until i collapse.

i think she believes if i can save her,
she’ll stay afloat.
but she doesn’t realize
i’m not on the shore.
i’m in the water with her.
and she’s got her fists in my shirt,
pulling me down,
down,
down.

she never asks how much air i have left.
she never stops to notice my limbs trembling, my throat burning.
she just says “i’m hurting” and i say “i know”
and she says “hold me up” and i do.

and she says “i can tell you’re not okay”
and then lets me sink.

and i love her — god, i love her —
but i think she might love me more when i’m breaking.
because then i have no choice but to stay.
and she has no choice but to lean.

and i’m so afraid that if i let go,
she’ll slip under.
but i’m starting to realize
if i don’t let go soon,
i will.

you were the piece of driftwood
keeping me above the waves.
i never noticed how deep the water was
until i let go.

now, the tide pulls heavy,
and i am tired.
sometimes, you find me,
you put your hands beneath my shoulders,
lifting me just high enough
to steal a breath of air.

but you are not mine to hold onto,
so the moment slips,
and the water takes me again.
i am just adrift.

every breath that i struggle to breathe is for you

it’s march now,
and i’ve never been so hopeful,
hopeful that what i feel is just temporary.
i’m tired of waiting for the warmth,
tired of feeling like i’m stuck in this cold.
i want to feel something other than numb,
to not feel like i’m just drifting through days.
is it too much to ask for the weight to lift?
to feel alive again,
to stop pretending i’m okay?
maybe the sun will help,
maybe it won’t,
but i’m begging for something to change.

i’ve been pretending to be okay all day but all i can think about is cutting

i post things i don’t even care about just to make you wonder if i’m still someone worth missing

remember how you taught me
that pain is proof of my worth?
i always thought it was silly,
but here i am,
one year later,
believing your twisted ideology:
love can only be earned through loss,
pain is the measure of success.
but i’m still here waiting
for my scars to mean something.
i miss that way you made me feel,
the rush,
the chaos,
the fall.
even now i crave the fleeting parts of myself
that fell apart when you touched them,
that frantic, beautiful madness
that kept me gasping for more
even when it left me broken.
because i was yours.
i know i know
it’s all my fault.
maybe if i wasn’t so ******* scared,
scared of letting you know me,
i would’ve stayed.
but then i remember september,
i hope you do too,
because it just proves that we’re unhealthy.
we made each other so depressed.
i think i keep writing about you
because no one
will ever know me like you did,
because i won’t let them.
but that makes me idolize you,
or something.
i should see a therapist.
my summer was fine until you interrupted it!
god, i just want to stop,
stop thinking about you
because i don’t even like you anymore.
things ain’t what they used to be.

i’ll be getting over you my whole life

i heard the morning birds chirping outside my window today
i thought: today is going to be a good day

i’ll be wrong
but it was nice to think it

my legs burn from the treadmill,
god, it hurts so bad…
but no—
don’t think like that.

pain means progress,
and that’s all i care about.

im running on empty
wish there was a way out

grief was sharp when i lost her,
a knife that cut clean.
it hurt, but at least i knew why.
now the sadness has no name,
just a weight i can’t put down,
a dull ache that never leaves,
a quiet kind of drowning.
i don’t know what’s worse,
the pain that made me cry
or the emptiness that won’t let me feel.

i used to need you like air,
sneaking away just to see your name light up my screen.
now i sit in the same room, same noise, same routine,
but without you, there’s nothing to run to.
instead, the cuts burn beneath my sweats,
a different kind of craving,
a different kind of absence.
i don’t reach for my phone anymore,
just press my hands to my legs and wait for it to pass.

my heart hurts
i can feel it in my chest

i build walls,
thick and tall,
afraid of what might slip through,
afraid of what i might feel.

he touches the bricks,
his fingers gentle,
but i flinch,
afraid of the weight of love,
the pressure of it all.

i want to let him in,
but fear wraps its arms around me,
its grip so tight i can’t breathe.
how can i ask for something
i don’t know how to give?

still, i whisper the truth,
just a crack in the wall,
hoping he’ll hear me,
hoping he’ll understand
that i’m trying,
even when i can’t be all of me.

somehow i knew
i was going to fall in love with you
even years before i did

everything between us
has always felt different
like every smile you give to me is sacred

i first felt it when i saw
the way your eyes shined in the sun
bright and full of promise

i knew it before i could admit it
before love had a name
and it was yours

valentine’s day came and went,
but i barely noticed—
too busy drowning in a loneliness
i can’t even name.

i sit in classrooms where futures are mapped
like road trips with no tolls, no dead ends,
just open highways and endless signs
pointing to anywhere but here.
but my world is smaller,
a pin on the map i cannot pull up,
a radius i cannot expand.
they speak of choices like air,
like water, like something everyone drinks,
but i sip scarcity,
i taste limits on my tongue.
my acceptance letter won’t be a ticket,
no plane, no train, no fresh start—
just a short drive down roads i’ve always known,
to a school that chose me
simply because i had no choice at all.

i am trying to be okay.
i am trying to be anything but this.
but my hands shake, my mind spins,
and i wonder if i was ever whole to begin with.

i carve myself down to the bone…

i can’t stop it…

help…

i want someone to see through my mask,
to catch the lie when i say it,
to notice the way my hands shake
when i say i’m fine.

i want someone to look past the smile,
past the jokes, past the easy nods,
to press just hard enough
that i have no choice but to break.

because i think i need to.
because i think i want to.
because i don’t know how to ask.

i cut up my leg today
thinking no one would see
thinking swim was over
thinking i was safe
but tomorrow
i’ll stand by the pool
water reflecting back at me
and i’ll wonder if they’ll notice
the way regret looks like red lines
against my skin

im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past
im here now
im not in the past

i don’t love him, not really.
but i like him a lot.

i don’t like you, not at all.
sometimes, i think i hate you.

but somehow
i still love you.

it’s weird

i’m trying so hard to be okay

it’s killing me to know
we will never have what we used to.
nothing will ever be the same again.
no more late-night conversations,
no endless support,
no hopeless love—
at least, not with you.

maybe it’s for the best.
there was pain tangled in you,
and i didn’t care then.
i guess i should now.

but still, the need lingers—
to tell you this,
to share, to overshare,
the way we used to.
but things are different now.
would it be wrong to say it?
would it even matter?

it feels pathetic,
writing this like i lost you,
like you were ever mine to lose.
but it still feels like heartbreak,
even though your heart
was never in it like mine was.

i think i was your priority once.
oh, how times have changed.
and sometimes, i wish i could go back—
i was sad, lonely, drowning,
but i had you.
it might have been enough for me,
but it was never enough for you.

now i try to replicate what we had,
but nothing ever fits.
it still stings when you joke
about how your friends think we’re dating,
because maybe we could have been.
but we weren’t.

i don’t love you.
but i used to.
and i don’t love you anymore—
but i wish i did.

if you ask me how i am,
i will repeat, reuse, recycle
the same phrase over and over,
slipping from my tongue
like it was the truth.

“i’m good.”
on occasion, “i’m tired.”
sometimes, “i’m happy.”
but never, “i’m sad.”

the lie is engraved, imprinted, etched,
so when someone asks,
“i’m good” comes easy—
because why would i be sad
if my life is perfect,
ideal, flawless?

but then i remember—
when you’re drowning,
it doesn’t matter if it’s ten feet or twenty.
the bottom line is,
you’re still drowning.

so maybe next time,
instead of “i’m good,”
i’ll tell the truth.
because when you’re drowning,
someone might save you.

a secret im too scared to share with anyone
except random strangers on the internet:
i wish i had an eating disorder.
i would be sad
but at least i’d be skinny.

im sorry.
i really am.

i don’t know what i’m supposed to do
with a body that doesn’t feel like mine,
always too much, always too little,
but never just right.

i cut away pieces of myself
yet i’m still too much.
it feels wrong, always wrong.
i look and see nothing but flaws
clinging to my skin like it’s suffocating,
i hate it for just existing.

i look at my reflection and feel disgusting,
a canvas of mistakes
that i can’t seem to wipe away,
no matter how hard i try.