written at night

They say humans aren’t born bad.

like that should comfort me.

like it means something

when I walk through a world

stitched together

by things we chose anyway.

They say we aren’t born good either

and that feels closer to the truth.

blank hands,

empty as open doors,

waiting to be filled

with whatever we’re handed

or whatever we take.

And what we take

what we make

what we leave behind

it’s everywhere.

I see it in the quiet cruelty

people pretend not to notice,

in the systems built so carefully

they look like accidents,

in the way harm becomes routine,

like background noise

no one bothers to turn off.

I am surrounded by it.

not monsters, not shadows,

not something easy to name and fight

people.

people who wake up,

get dressed,

go to work,

and build small pieces of something broken

over and over again.

And maybe that’s what unsettles me most

evil doesn’t always roar.

sometimes it hums.

sometimes it smiles,

shakes your hand,

and calls itself normal.

They say we aren’t born bad.

but we learn quickly.

I used to believe in things

not loudly,

not with speeches or certainty,

but in small, folded ways.

Eyes closed on a plane,

fingers curled into the armrest,

whispering to something I couldn’t name,

just let me land safely.

And I thought something listened.

I used to believe people cared

that words meant something

when they left your mouth,

that listening wasn’t just waiting

for your turn to speak.

I used to believe in society

like it was a structure

flawed, sure,

but standing.

Like if enough of us leaned into it,

it wouldn’t crack.

I used to believe in mankind

in the quiet goodness

that was supposed to live

underneath all the noise.

But somewhere between turbulence

and silence,

between speaking and not being heard,

something shifted.

Now I keep my eyes open on planes.

Not out of bravery

just because I stopped asking

for anything to catch me.

Now I listen more than I speak,

not because I trust what I’ll hear,

but because I’ve learned

how easily people don’t.

And belief

that soft, steady thing

doesn’t sit in my chest anymore.

It lingers at the edges sometimes,

like a memory

I can’t quite return to.

Like a place

I’m not sure ever existed

There was a blanket

we named like it could hear us.

Snowball.

as if it had a heartbeat,

as if it chose us back.

It wasn’t perfect.

Threads loosening at the edges,

feathers slipping out like quiet confessions

we never thought to keep.

We built entire worlds beneath it.

Forts that hummed with flashlight constellations,

whispered stories that felt like truth

because we said them together.

And sometimes

because even magic gets too warm

we’d kick it off in the middle of the night,

laughing, half-asleep,

never thinking about mornings.

You are still alive somewhere in that room.

So am I.

But not here.

Here, we are strangers

wearing the same names.

I don’t want you now.

Not the way you’ve become,

not the way time reshaped you

into someone I wouldn’t choose.

But I miss the girl

who didn’t need choosing.

The one who was just there.

Always there.

I think that’s why I keep searching.

Not for you

but for something that stays.

Something soft enough

to hold a whole world again,

even if it’s just mine this time.

And maybe one day,

it will be thrown off the bed

by someone who doesn’t know its history,

who laughs in the dark

the way we used to.

Maybe it will lose feathers again.

Maybe it will become something

worth naming.

Not Snowball.

But something close enough

to remember

I knew before they told me.

My body had been whispering it

for years

in patterns that didn’t make sense,

in changes I couldn’t explain,

in the way nothing ever felt

simple.

People had said it before,

like a guess,

like a maybe.

But that day

it stopped being a question.

It had a name.

And somehow

that made it worse.

Because names make things real.

They sit heavier in your chest,

they echo louder in your mind,

they follow you home

and don’t leave

when the appointment ends.

I thought I would feel relief,

like finally solving a problem

you’ve been stuck on.

But instead

I cried.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just enough

to feel something

crack open.

Because I wasn’t just hearing a diagnosis.

I was hearing

everything it might mean.

Every version of my body

I thought I understood

shifting,

quietly,

permanently.

And no one in the room

mourned it with me.

They handed me information,

next steps,

words like “manageable”

and “common.”

But grief

isn’t less real

just because it’s common.

I walked out

the same person

on paper.

But something had changed.

Because now

when my body spoke,

I knew its name,

and I didn’t know

if that made me feel closer to it

is knowing fear

like a second pulse

steady, constant,

never loud enough

to name.

We learn it early.

In the way doors are locked twice.

In footsteps behind us.

In keys threaded through knuckles

like quiet prayers.

They say danger

looks like war zones,

like sirens,

like streets you’re told to avoid.

But the most dangerous place

has always been closer than that

a familiar hallway,

a shared bed,

a voice you were taught to trust.

Being a woman

is learning this

and still choosing to live

to laugh too loud,

to take up space,

to come home

and hope

Tuesday sits awkwardly in the week,

like a thought you almost finished.

Not sharp like Monday,

not soft like Friday

just dull enough

to linger.

It arrives carrying

everything you pushed aside

toothaches,

missed calls,

the weight of things

you said you’d handle later.

Later is always Tuesday.

You dial numbers you don’t want to call,

listen to hold music

like a quiet punishment,

convince yourself

this counts as progress.

For a moment

you think it’s Wednesday

a brief, bright mistake

before the truth settles back in.

No,

it’s still Tuesday.

And it will be,

Why does life

have to be so hard?

Everything feels like a chore

waking up,

getting through the day,

even breathing

somehow feels heavy.

What is it about me

that makes living

feel this difficult?

Life hasn’t even given me

an inch of grace.

So I take whatever is offered,

no matter how small,

afraid that if I say no

nothing else will ever come.

I try.

God, I try.

I push myself forward

even when the ground

beneath me

never seems steady.

But why do I struggle

when I am already trying

so hard?

Please

just give me the strength.

I can’t help

the life I was born into,

the hands I was given,

the doors that were never opened.

And it isn’t even the end

that frightens me.

It’s the beginning.

It’s that nothing good

ever seems

I look at old pictures

and realize

what a terrible burden it is

to know time.

To see a moment frozen

smiles that didn’t know

they were already becoming

memory.

Hair darker.

Faces younger.

People standing beside you

who will not always be there.

And I wonder sometimes

if any other being on this earth

fears time the way we do.

If the birds know

their summers are numbered.

If the deer pause in the woods

thinking of winters yet to come.

Or if it is only us

humans

given the cruel gift

of watching life move forward

while knowing

it will one day

move on without us.

And still

we keep the pictures.

Proof

that time was here

Closer to thirty

than the girl who once believed

time was an endless hallway

with every door still unlocked.

I count the things

I said I would become.

A book with my name on the spine.

Ink pressed into skin

that someone would carry forever.

A room full of students

learning how to turn their pain into sentences.

Instead

I sit in my childhood room

with dreams folded up

like clothes that no longer fit.

I tried to draw today.

The pencil felt unfamiliar,

like shaking hands with an old friend

who remembers you better

than you remember yourself.

The girl in the bottle

at the bottom of the sea

would not come out right.

The squids curled around her

like questions.

How did you get here?

Where did the years go?

Why does the water feel so deep?

My hands forgot things

my mind still remembers.

Once

I could draw eyes

that looked back at me.

Now they stare sideways

as if embarrassed

to belong to me.

I keep thinking

life was supposed to start already.

That somewhere between

twenty and now

I must have missed the moment

everyone else stepped forward.

But the clock keeps moving

whether I am ready or not,

and I sit here

counting unfinished versions

of the person