funny how the numbers don’t lie,
even when i do.
unadded, unseen, but somehow
you’re still the one i sent the most to.

life is just spewing purple,
not always bright,
sometimes dark,
but it means something.
there’s joy to be caught,
even in small amounts.

disappointment hit me like a truck,
an unexpected collision on a quiet street.
i have to gather the pieces of myself,
press them back into place,
pretend they were never scattered.
i have to.

i smile like it’s armor,
i laugh like it’s easy.
i nod, i work, i move,
as if the ground beneath me isn’t cracked,
as if the weight on my chest isn’t real.

how do i function
with this quiet ache,
this invisible bruise?
(someone tell me)
i’m a puppet on strings,
pulled into the shape of “fine.”

no one asks,
and i don’t tell.
the show must go on,
even when the spotlight burns.

she called me a ****,
as if the word could sink into my skin
and define the person i am.

but i am not that
(couldn’t be farther than that).
i long for what she can’t see—
a love that is honest,
a connection without walls,
a trust that doesn’t crumble
when the world’s gaze turns sharp.

her words aren’t true,
but they still found their mark,
like arrows tipped with shadows.
it hurts,
not because i believe her,
but because she believed
that tearing me down
was easier than understanding me.

i am not what she said.
i am someone
who loves deeply,
who craves meaning in a world
that so often refuses to give it.
she doesn’t know me,
but i know myself.
snd that has to be enough.

and yet, what hurts the most
is that she knows me.

every breath that i struggle to breathe is for you

i measure my days in the moments i break
not in the sun or the steps that i take
morning starts quiet, but it cracks by noon
by evening, i’m drowning under the moon

one tear means the day was “okay,”
two means the weight wouldn’t fade away
three, i’m silent, too afraid to be seen
four, and i’m lost in the spaces between

i wasn’t always this fragile, or this small
didn’t always crumble at every call
but now my reflection feels strange, almost blurred
a ghost of the girl i once preferred

this isn’t normal, no, this isn’t me
but i’m trapped in this cycle, i can’t break free
one tear at a time, i fall apart
praying tomorrow will restart my broken heart

i want to pull you close
and never let go.
i want to thread my fingers
through your brown hair,
to hear the melody
of your laughter,
like a favorite song
i never get tired of.

there’s something about you
that makes the world quieter.
makes the air easier to breathe.
like maybe i was always meant
to end up here,
in the warmth of your smile.

i don’t need grand gestures or gifts.
just this.
you.
me.
and the kind of love
that makes ordinary days
feel like music.

today i realized
how easily i can be manipulated
and still
i let it happen

the clock hands circle, slow yet unkind,
stealing the moments i’ll never rewind.
each second a whisper, a truth left unsaid,
a future that waits while the past is widespread.

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.

i don’t deserve
the soft things.
not love,
not light,
not even quiet.

everything i’ve earned
is a lie,
and everyone knows it.
they just pretend they don’t.

i only deserve
what cuts.
and maybe
i always have.

there’s a quiet kind of grief
in wanting to scream but choosing silence,
in driving nowhere just to feel the road
pull you back into your body.

some days, my reflection feels like a stranger,
a ghost of who i thought i’d become.
other days, i’m just tired—
of waiting for apologies
that won’t come,
of remembering things that didn’t end right,
of waking up hoping
it might feel different.

there’s a heaviness in holding on
to people who’ve already let you go,
a hollowness in pretending
you don’t feel the gap
where they used to be.
but even in the absence,
you play their songs like prayers—
a melody to make the pain
feel like it belongs to someone else.

the sky is orange,
and so are we,
faces lit by the last light,
music shaking the air,
hair caught in the wind
like it wants to leave too.

she’s back.
we’re thirteen again,
laughing like the year
never stretched between us.

sunlight spills through open windows,
sticks to our skin,
melts the silence
between heartbeats.

i’m in love.
she’s home.
the sky is on fire.

everything is orange.
everything is alive.

and for a second,
everything
is exactly
enough.

i’m not like you.
me and you,
we are not the same.

you see a scratch,
i see a reason.
you ask why my arms look like this,
i say,
they’re just scars.

you pass by a razor,
i break it down in my mind.
you see a pocket knife,
i wonder
how sharp,
how deep,
how much.

you live.
i survive.

we are not the same.

january met december in the folds of a fading year,
a moment stolen between frost-kissed whispers,
their breaths clouding in the air like secrets
too fragile to ever be spoken aloud.

“you feel like me,” january murmured,
“cold, distant, yet burning inside.
you know what it’s like to hold endings in your palms
and pretend they’re beginnings.”

“i know,” december sighed,
“and you—
you know how it feels to start over
when you’re not yet ready to let go.”

they danced on the edges of time,
two mirrors reflecting the same aching soul,
their closeness fleeting, their yearning endless,
bound by something stronger than love—
the cruel rhythm of the clock.

“stay,” january begged,
but december was already fading,
dragged backward by the relentless pull of the seasons.
“i would,” december whispered,
“if only time would let me.”

and so they parted,
leaving their longing scattered like snowflakes
on the bridge between years.

i think of him when i see january,
when i feel december slipping away.
we fit so perfectly, like the edges of a broken year,
but the world didn’t allow us to remain.

i miss him in the spaces where time can’t touch,
in the echoes of all the things we almost were.
like january and december,
i loved him in the quiet moments we stole—
and lost him to the hands of a clock
i couldn’t stop.

shoveling the snow at 10 tonight,
because your parents aren’t home,
and i guess that’s what you do
when you’re 17.

you turn your back,
feel the sharp betrayal
of a snowball,
barreling from your sister’s hands.

grabbing the sleds,
saying just once.
is that what you do when you’re 17?
or am i still a child?

you walk the neighborhood.
the cold bites, exhilarating.
but the snow feels heavier somehow,
emphasizing the absence
of something you can’t name.

today, the urge
was louder than usual.
it followed me
through every number,
clung to my pencil
as i finished my math test
with shaking hands.

in jazz band,
it buzzed under the keys,
twisting under every note
like it belonged there.

i saw blood in places
it didn’t belong.
on the paper,
on my lap,
on the floor of my mind.

but i didn’t let it out.
not today.
not this time.

i don’t write about you
as often as i used to.
i feel sorry about that.
you still make everything
feel like a love story.
even when my hands shake,
even when the days are heavy,
you hold me like the ending
could still be happy.

i love you in quieter ways now,
in glances, in waiting,
in letting myself stay.
and that matters more
than any poem ever could.
but still, i’ll try to write you one
anyway.

i thought today
maybe things were feeling better.
a little lighter.

but it’s not true.
not anymore.
things are still heavy.

and im
s
  i
   n
    k
     i
      n
       g

tonight is my last night being 16,
and the air feels heavy,
like it knows what i’m leaving behind.
i would pay everything i have,
every dollar, every secret,
every scar,
just to go back.
back to scraped knees instead of broken hearts,
to believing every birthday was magic,
to running without wondering
where i was going.
but time is cruel,
and childhood is a price you can’t refund.

you say
“what are you scared of?”
and i say “silence,”
but you’re confused

what i mean is
silence is haunting
it’s not only the absence of sound
it’s the absence of everything

you don’t realize, when it is silent
thoughts slip into my brain
bad thoughts
ones that you don’t have

they creep in like shadows
filling the void with echoes
of every mistake, every fear,
reminders of battles lost within

in that quiet,
the heart races,
drowning in whispers
that claw at my sanity

i long for the noise,
the chatter, the laughter,
anything to drown
out the darkness lurking

you see, it’s not just the silence—
it’s what it reveals,
the demons I face alone
in the stillness of my mind

did you know your eyes are golden, not brown…?
did you know that i loved you this time last year…?
did you know that i still do…?

i think about
how mom panicked
when i told her i had cut,
as if she could fix it
if she moved fast enough.

i think about
how dad cried,
eyes breaking like mirrors.
he never cries.

i think about
how the doctor looked at me,
all pity and pleading,
“just let me see,”
like proof would help her understand.

but it’s not about seeing.
it’s about feeling
what no one else
can carry for me.

when he leans in
i can feel the weight of his want
his lips brush mine
and all i can think of is escape

it’s not his fault
not the way he cradles my face
nor the way his hands
search for a piece of me
i wish wasn’t there

i love him, i think
but love feels heavy when
it meets the mirror
i’ve spent years avoiding
his eyes are soft
but i don’t want them to see

i pull away
make excuses out of thin air
like smoke that lingers
and betrays the flame
he asks if something is wrong
and i wish i could answer

when i kiss him
i try to love him
but the hardest battle
is loving the body
he thinks belongs to me

i love the way snow transforms the world,
makes it cleaner,
brighter,
softer.
it wraps everything in a quiet that feels holy,
like the world is holding its breath
just to listen.

but even snow melts.
it retreats in patches,
revealing the grass,
the cracks in the pavement,
the things i tried to forget beneath the frost.

i think that’s what scares me.
the way beauty can vanish,
the way stillness fades,
how the cold that once felt comforting
can turn to mud in your hands.

nothing stays covered forever.
and maybe that’s the point—
to see what remains
when the snow is gone.

i thought i was fine
until i saw you smile at her
it shouldn’t hurt
but it does.
i let go of you
long before you let go of me
and somehow
that makes it worse.

the snow falls, but it doesn’t stay
even december can’t make me whole again

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?

december 26 is the saddest day of the year.
the wrapping paper is gone, the songs have faded.
yesterday, the house was full of light,
but now it feels hollow,
like joy was something borrowed
and the owner came to collect.

it’s the inevitable comedown of christmas.
a year stretches out before you,
but you know it won’t be the same.
the world moves on,
the magic grows thinner,
and you’re left holding memories
that feel heavier than the wait.