𝐥𝐞𝐞 🍄🐌🌿

i think about all the versions of me that could’ve existed if i wasn’t like this. if i wasn’t so scared of everything, so trapped in my own comfort zone. if i wasn’t so inconsistent, so unmotivated to do even the things i wanted the most. new year comes, same goals, nothing finished. i think of the me that could’ve known better, the me that wasn’t so naive all the time. i wish i could go back and shake myself, tell myself to stop. stop talking. stop trusting. stop giving pieces of myself to people who didn’t even care. it’s humiliating. it actually makes me feel sick, remembering the way i was, how unaware i was of everything, how i let it all happen.

and the worst part is i think i knew it. i think i felt it the whole time, that they didn’t care about me the way i cared about them, and i still stayed. i made myself small and easy, gave them everything i had just so they might notice me, just so they might stay, and they didn’t. they still left. and i kept going back. kept hoping. kept begging in my head. like something in me refuses to learn. like i’d rather be treated like nothing than sit alone with myself and face how much i hate what i see.

i don’t even hate them anymore. i really don’t. maybe i never did. maybe i never hated them for it because i let it happen. i hate myself for it. for making it so easy. for sitting there and taking it like it was all i deserved. for pretending it didn’t hurt and then being shocked when it kept happening. feeling like i could’ve done something different, anything, and didn’t. i have no right to be angry at them for the way they treated me, because i let it happen.

and no one understands what it’s like to live like this. i can’t relax, can’t let my body fall apart the way people say i should. i’ve always lived like this, holding everything in so tight, and if i let go for even a second i’ll just… i’ll just break and never be able to put myself back together. like all the pieces will scatter and there’s nothing left to gather. and everyone talks about healing like it’s simple, like i can just let go and be okay, but how? how am i supposed to do that when letting go feels like disappearing, like i’ll vanish if i stop holding everything in?

there are parts of me i hate. parts i don’t even want to admit are mine. i wish i could just rip them out and be someone else, someone who doesn’t do this, someone who doesn’t ruin everything, who doesn’t embarrass themselves, who doesn’t beg for care in ways that push people away. i don’t want to accept them. i don’t want to grow from them. i just want them gone.

but they don’t leave. they sit there, in the back of my head, screaming at me, reminding me of everything i wish i could forget. every version of me i wish i wasn’t. every moment i wish i could erase. it just stays. i can’t move on from it. it’s all still here, and it feels like it always will be.

she was my superhero. my whole world. the person i wanted to grow into. i loved having her face when i was younger. i thought it meant we were connected in some way. i thought it meant something good. but as i got older, as i became a teenager, i realized how much anger sat behind her eyes, how much sadness. sometimes i catch my reflection and it scares me because i see her anger in the shape of my mouth, in the set of my jaw, in the way my hands clench when no one’s looking. i wonder if one day i will hurt my future daughter the way she hurt me and the thought twists my stomach into knots. i do not want to be anything like her anymore. it terrifies me to think i might be.

we are like cracked mirrors facing each other. she is what i am afraid of turning into. i am what she might have been if anyone had ever been gentle with her. i know she never got the love she needed when she was little, but i was little too. i was trying to hold her weight with hands that were too small, with a heart that was too fragile. my spine wasn’t developed enough to be her pillar, and i was just a little kid. no one protected me from her. i was not built to hold up a woman who could not carry her own pain. my body was too small and she still made me carry it anyway.

i keep trying to remind myself i am my own person. that i get to choose my life. that i am not doomed to repeat whatever cycle she handed me. but some part of me still aches to be the daughter she wanted. i tried so hard to be good. to be easy. to be small enough that she would not get mad. to be impressive enough to earn even a tiny drop of love. i did everything right and it still was not enough. it never mattered. i never mattered.

i have spent so much of my life looking for her approval in other people. in every corner of the world. in anyone who made me feel seen for even a second. but it is impossible to win approval from someone who gets angry even when you do everything right. someone who wanted a different child entirely. someone who told me she wished i was never born. someone who said it would have been better if she had erased me before i ever took a breath.

mother why did you say that to me. why did you make me if you hated everything i grew into. i am made of your pieces. i am stitched together from all the parts of you that you never healed. i needed you to love me. i needed you to look at me. really look at me. but all i can remember are the things you said that still sit in my chest like knives. you told me i was worthless. you told me you wished you had an abortion. you said you wished something terrible would happen to me, something no child should ever hear their mother hope for. you called me a dog. you told me you wished i was dead. i still hear every word. they never left. they cling to me like something i never agreed to carry, something that burrowed under my skin before i even understood what it all meant.

you put violence in me before i even knew what it was. you pushed it into my bones, slipped it into my hands, tucked it under the soles of my feet so it followed me everywhere i went. sometimes i open my mouth and it is your voice instead of mine and it scares me. please stop yelling. please stop swearing. please tell me where to put all this anger you left inside me. how do i keep it from swallowing me whole. how do i become something better than what you taught me.

it shows up in stupid ways. in the middle of a silence that should be peaceful. in dreams that feel too familiar. in a song i have not heard in years that suddenly knows exactly where to hit me. it rises back up before i can stop it and i hate how weak that makes me feel. time did not heal any of this. none of you were right. the worst part of love is that i remember it even when i want nothing more than to forget. i remember the good parts in a way that hurts. i remember the bad parts in a way that ruins everything else. i remember because my brain thinks it is loyal to pain.

loving me is its own kind of disappointment. i have edges that never learned how to soften. i have pieces that went missing years ago and i still keep pretending i do not notice the holes. some days i am quiet because everything hurts. some days i disappear because i do not know how to explain the kind of heaviness that sits on my chest. i lie and say i am fine because the truth feels like an apology i am tired of repeating.

there are nights when i turn off my phone and stare at the ceiling like it owes me answers. nights when i want to reach out but my hands feel like they belong to someone who has already failed. i let the calls pile up. twelve missed calls. four voicemails. i saw every one of them and still could not move. it is humiliating to admit that. it is humiliating to need love and still run from it.

i am not trying to be cruel. i am not trying to push anyone away. i just get stuck inside myself, like a room with no windows. sometimes i think if you saw the real version of me you would leave without looking back. maybe that is why i vanish. maybe that is why i come back apologizing for things i cannot seem to fix.

i don’t trust myself anymore. i can feel when something’s wrong, when i should leave, when i should protect myself, and i stay anyway. i tell myself it’ll be different this time. that i’m stronger now. that i can handle it. but i never am. i keep walking back into the same pain like maybe if i just understand it enough, it’ll stop hurting. it never does.

i used to trust myself. i used to listen when my gut whispered leave. now it’s just noise. i say i’m okay when i’m not. i promise i’ll stop chasing people who make me feel small, and then i do it again. over and over. until i’m tired of even trying to be someone i can believe in.

and the worst part is how normal it feels now. how easy it is to disappoint myself. how easy it is to break my own heart and sit there, quiet, pretending it doesn’t matter. i tell myself i’ll change, that next time will be the last time, but it never is.

it took years of dragging myself out of the dark, years of choking on everything i had swallowed about who i was, to see how deep it had rotted me. i knew it wasn’t love. i knew it wasn’t safe. but i kept holding it close like it was sacred. begging for scraps. pretending crumbs could fill a starving body.

i called it loyalty when really it was desperation. i called it love when it was just me handing my heart to people who never even wanted to carry it. i bled for anyone who asked, then told myself the scars meant i mattered. i built altars out of people who couldn’t even stay, who looked through me like i was nothing, and i prayed harder anyway.

i was so afraid of abandonment that i kept choosing the ones who could never stay. people who didn’t know how to love me, people who never even tried. and i told myself it was safer that way. because if they left, at least i hadn’t lost anything real. but i was still losing. every single time. losing myself. cutting myself down just to fit into their hunger.

when i love, i give everything. i want his time, his attention, his words, his hands on me. i want him all the time. i want him when he’s tired, when he’s busy, when he doesn’t have anything left to give. i want every part of him. i get attached too fast and i hold on too tight. i pour all of me into him until there’s nothing left for myself. my own dreams start gathering dust. i forget who i am outside of loving him.

when a woman loves, she stays. she stays when it hurts. she stays when her heart feels like it’s cracking open. she stays when her friends tell her to leave. she stays when she knows better. because she thinks love means holding on. she thinks love means never letting go.

but men don’t love like that. they love in their own way. they might not text you all day. they might not call every night. but they’ll show you off. they’ll tell the world you’re theirs. they’ll open up their life to you. they’ll give you what they can, when they can. not because they have to. but because that’s how they love.

i feel anger deep in my veins. i don’t know exactly why, but i know i’ve been angry since i was a child. so angry that sometimes it comes out in tears that feel red, like fire dripping from my eyes. i don’t feel anger at anyone else, only at myself. sometimes my anger slips through the cracks of the cage i put it in, and then it takes over. i shout, i scream, i explode, lava spilling from my mouth, and afterwards i feel hollow, weak, like i’ve been empty for too long. the cage feels suffocating. i can’t breathe.

no one likes an angry girl. simmer down. don’t speak too loud. calm down. relax. take a deep breath. you’ll push everyone away. i know the rules, i hear them over and over, but my anger is like a starved feral dog living in the back of my throat. it’s angry at the world, angry at the hands that try to feed it. when i open my mouth it barks, and everyone runs. and i can’t help it. i don’t want to help it.

but i promise, i sat with anger long enough. i held her, listened, waited, and one night she whispered her real name to me: grief. and behind all the anger, there is something soft. a tenderness buried deep inside me, still alive even when the pain explodes, even when i feel like i’m breaking apart. all i ever needed was a hug to hold it together, a chain made of love to keep it from spilling over.

my biggest regret is how much i’ve believed in the future. i’ve lived like there would always be another chance. another hug. another laugh. another chance to make it right. i let people leave thinking i could hold my words for later, like silence was safer, like tomorrow would always come. but tomorrow is a liar.

i wish i had memorized them better. the way their voice cracked when they laughed, the little things they said without thinking, the way their hands moved when they were nervous. i thought i’d remember forever. i thought i’d have forever. but forever doesn’t exist.

and i always laugh. not because it’s funny, not because what i’ve lived through could ever be a joke. but because i find their question so strange. as if the natural response to pain should be cruelty. as if revenge should be stitched into my blood. i don’t match energy. i don’t believe in dirtying myself just to prove i survived. you don’t clean dirt with more dirt. an eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind.

i don’t believe in revenge. i don’t believe in handing my wounds to someone else like some cursed inheritance. i don’t believe in breaking people just because i know what it feels like to be broken. the cycle of hurt ends with me. i refuse to lead someone on just because i was misled. i refuse to tear someone down just because i was torn apart. i refuse to harden.

not because i am weak, but because i am stronger this way. because carrying softness after everything i’ve seen feels like the greatest rebellion. because the person they already are is punishment enough. i don’t have to lift a finger. the best revenge i’ve ever taken is to keep being myself. to live fully. to move forward. to laugh again. to love again. to wake up every day and choose joy in a world that once told me i’d never find it.

happiness is my rebellion. peace is my quiet war. not every wound deserves an answer, not every betrayal deserves my fire. the most powerful thing i’ve ever done is refuse to let pain turn me into something unrecognizable.

it is a blessing, truly, to still love this openly. to stretch my arms wide, to let people in, to love with every atom of my body even when they cannot love me back. even when they leave. even when they leave scars. because the next person might love me. and if not them, then maybe the one after. and if no one ever does, that’s okay too.

because oh my god. there are still so many books left waiting for me. there are instruments i have never touched, poems i have not written yet, people i have not kissed but maybe will. there are cups of boba i have not ordered, sidewalks i have not walked down, conversations i have not had while sitting on the kitchen floor. there are friends i have not met yet, train rides i have not taken, phone calls i have not let myself stay on for hours. there are journals i have not filled, meals i have not cooked for someone i love, cheap flowers i have not bought just to make my room softer. there are thrift shops i have not searched through, playlists i have not made, windows i have not opened just to let the night air in. there are letters i still want to write, sunsets i want to watch dissolve behind rooftops, and rainy afternoons i want to waste doing absolutely nothing.

and maybe that is why i came back. because i promised i would not forget. i promised i would notice it all. the chipped paint on old houses, the way strangers hold doors for each other, the sound of someone humming without realizing it. the world is stitched together by small miracles, and i swore i would keep looking for them. i swore i would let myself be wrecked by beauty, even if it broke my heart a little more each time.

i remember all of it. the loud times that almost gave me away. the quiet times no one ever found out about. i was eleven the first time. just a kid in sixth grade. bullied every day at school, hurt at home. i didn’t have friends. i didn’t have anyone. i felt like i was disappearing even though i was right there.

the second time was when i was fifteen, after i was assaulted. i couldn’t sleep without feeling it again. no matter what i did, i couldn’t get rid of it. i felt ruined. i told no one. i kept it inside until it broke me. two months later i told my mom and she cried like the world had ended.

every time after that was me trying to figure out why i was even here. what my purpose was. why i was made at all. i fell behind while everyone else kept going. i felt stuck in place, like i was already gone but still breathing. and what hurts the most is knowing i’m not the only one. that there are so many people out there who feel the same.

i haven’t tried since i was seventeen. and if you’re like me, if you’ve ever been here, i need you to hear this: you are still here. that matters. you are not weak for surviving. you are not broken for hurting. you are worth love. you are worth staying.

i have a storm inside me, quiet and restless, and it doesn’t forgive easily. it doesn’t know how to love without fear, how to speak without breaking. i can offer you warmth, but i can’t promise safety, not really. not the way you deserve. you would deserve a heart that doesn’t tremble at its own beat, that doesn’t fold under the weight of someone else’s.

because i see a face that learned to freeze whenever he started yelling. i see lips that stayed shut because anything i said would be turned against me. i see a smile that isn’t mine, one i put on just to make him stop. i see shoulders that curl in like maybe if i disappear a little more, the pain will pass. i see a jaw that clenched for hours just to hold myself together. i see cheeks that soaked up the words he spat at me like they were punches.

i see eyes that have grown tired and empty from holding myself smaller so he wouldn’t notice me. i see nights where i lay awake shaking, replaying everything i said wrong. i see mornings where i force myself to get out of bed and pretend i’m okay while my chest still hurts. i see a heart that beats fast even when nothing is happening. i see a head that spins thinking about what i should say, what i shouldn’t say, what will keep me safe.

i see hands that hesitate to touch anything. i see my voice getting smaller, quieter, softer. i see myself apologizing for everything, even for breathing wrong. i see the way i stopped laughing, the way i stopped saying what i wanted, the way i stopped doing things i liked. i see the way i shrink in rooms, the way silence makes me panic, the way i learned to fear being ignored because every time he was upset he’d go quiet i’d feel like i was drowning.

i see all the nights he spent yelling at me, all the mornings ruined by his comments, all the afternoons i tried and failed to make him happy. i see the words he spat at me over and over, the “you’re too much,” “you’re worthless,” “you’ll never be enough,” stuck in my head. i see the way i learned to hold back, to measure everything i do so i wouldn’t upset anyone. i see the way i question myself constantly, the way i second-guess the way i walk, the way i talk, the way i smile.

i see all the ways he deformed me and none of the ways i reformed myself. i can’t see the pieces i built back, the things i survived, the parts of me that are mine again. it’s quiet, it’s hidden, it’s still there, and it aches.

but you’re going to break your promise. i knew that before the words even left my mouth. i could feel it in the way your body pulled away from mine, in the way your hand hovered above me like i was too fragile, too filthy, too much. i could feel it in the way your voice shook when you said forever, like you were already rehearsing your goodbye. i understand, and i tell myself that’s enough. so i press my hands over the ears of my rotting heart, like a mother shielding her child, trying to keep it soft, trying to keep it from hearing the sound of you leaving. because if it learns the truth, it will hate you. and if it hates you, it will hate me too.

now the fleas have gone still. the worms will soon follow. and the weight in my chest grows heavier every day, pressing down like a body i can’t crawl out from under. i open my mouth to scream but there is nothing left in me but dust. i wanted it to be you. i wanted it so badly to be you. i gave you every part of me, even the broken ones. i let you crawl inside my ribs and call it home. i let your name take root in my marrow. i burned myself to keep you warm and i called that devotion. i wanted to believe you would stay anyway. i wanted to believe i was enough to make you stay.

you can’t break someone and shrug it off, claiming you owe nothing. you can’t invalidate someone’s feelings and act like it’s not your problem. to say “i’m not reading all of that, it’s not that deep” is to deny humanity itself. humility is not optional. empathy is free. it costs nothing, yet so many treat it like a luxury. the world has traded kindness for convenience, attentiveness for self-protection, and in that exchange we’ve lost the quiet power of noticing, of caring, of being fully present. the small acts of love, the words that hold weight, the moments we choose to stay instead of walking away, these are the things that matter, and so many let them slip by.

and the emptiness that comes with that is heavy. we live in a place where people would rather protect their ego than own their mistakes. where silence is a weapon and ignoring someone’s pain is an acceptable response. where the people who loved you most are taken for granted, where the ones who believed in you are left waiting. but owning your faults, acknowledging the harm you’ve caused, that is where real strength lives. it’s messy and uncomfortable, but it’s real. it shapes you. it makes you human. it reminds you that growth is not painless, but it is worth it. it reminds you that the love you withhold, the apologies you delay, the recognition you avoid, they all have a cost, and the only way to repair it is to step into the responsibility you owe.

the truth is, the ones who hide behind “i don’t owe anyone anything” are trying to convince themselves they are untouchable. but real power is not in avoidance, it’s in engagement. it’s in the hard conversations, the admissions that sting, the apologies that feel too late. it’s in showing up when you would rather walk away. it’s in listening when you’d rather look away, in responding when it’s inconvenient, in taking responsibility even when no one is watching. it’s in honoring the trust you were given, the love you were offered, the patience you were shown. that is what changes lives. that is what builds connection. that is what keeps us human.

and maybe that’s on me. maybe it’s my fault for believing that someone would hold my vulnerability with reverence. maybe it’s my fault for putting the weight of a loaded gun in someone’s hands and whispering please don’t pull the trigger, only to watch them aim anyway.

i should know better by now. i wouldn’t tell a stranger my front door doesn’t lock. i wouldn’t confess where my defenses are weakest. so why do i keep telling men where my heart is softest, why do i lay out every scar like an invitation. i have been treating my grief like it needs to be explained when really it just needs to be protected.

you don’t need to know how my exes treated me. you don’t need to know the names of my ghosts or the shape of my fears. if you loved me, you wouldn’t need directions. you’d walk carefully without being told where it hurts. you’d touch me like something holy, not like a wound you want to reopen.

and maybe that’s the lesson. maybe silence is safer than confession. maybe the deepest parts of me aren’t meant to be handed over like offerings to anyone who asks. because i am not a manual. i am not a warning label. i am not an invitation to repeat history.