I lit my hands to warm their nights, burned down my voice to make it right, bent every edge, broke every bone, to build them peace and feel alone.
I learned to smile through shattered glass, made laughter from the things that pass, carried their burdens without sound, till my own heart was underground.
They praised me when I played their part, but never reached within my heart, said, "you're so strong", as if that cured the years of silence I endured.
They loved the mask, the shape I wore, the version I was just before, but when I changed - when cracks showed through, they mourned the lie they thought was true.
"You're not yourself", they'd say with scorn, not knowing I was worn and torn, not knowing that the self they missed was built from bruises I dismissed.
I dimmed my light so theirs could burn, took hits for lessons they could learn, held steady in their thunder's path, and gave them grace instead of wrath.
I made my pain a hidden well, and filled it deep with "I'm just swell", till water rose past every breath, and kindness felt a lot like death.
And still, I stayed, and played the role - the healer with a hollow soul, the "safe one" they could always call, the one who'd never let them see her fall.
But I was falling all along, just good at dressing grief in song, I cried in rooms they never knew, and still asked them what they went through.
They missed the me that kept it light, not the one who fought the fear, of never truly being here.
I changed, yes - how could I not? When every wound was left to rot? When love felt more like debt to pay, and worth was just what I could weigh?
They called it selfish when you grow, when you say "no", when you let go, but it's not selfish to survive, to carve out space and stay alive.
I am not less for needing space, for letting my performance cease, for walking back into my skin, and not apologizing again.
And still I give - but not the same, not bleeding just to bear the blame, if loving me means shrinking small, then maybe don't love me at all.
But still it haunts - the need to be enough for those who don't see me, to earn what should be freely kept, to mourn the self I quietly wept.
And maybe that's the price I pay: to break in silence every day, to wear their coldness like perfume, and carry ghosts in every room.
But know this truth: I always cared, I gave too much, was never spared, and if they look, perhaps they'll see - what broke was love, not only me.