a girl & her ghosts

my father still doesn't know i feel distant from him all the time, and that I grieve the closeness we never had.

my brother still doesn't know that i hate who i’ve become and i wish i had turned out more like him.

You’d fold your arms, swallow your feelings, and act like it doesn’t touch you. You’d say, “do whatever you wanna do but don’t expect me to stick around,” like pushing me away is easier than admitting you care, easier than softening, easier than loving me back. You’d rather lose me than admit you don’t want to lose me.

And somehow I’m the one left hurting, the one shaking, the one wondering how the person I love can watch me reach for the door without blinking. No fear in your eyes, no panic, no softness — just cold distance, like you’d rather die than let me see you want me.

It makes me feel stupid for ever believing I mattered enough to be fought for. I replay every moment I stayed, every time I tried, every time I held the weight for both of us, and it hits me that you would’ve let it all fall. Because when I imagine leaving, the pain isn’t in the breaking — it’s in knowing you’d let me go just to prove you don’t need me.

But the worst part is, I don’t have to leave to feel it — I feel it while I’m still here, still trying, still pretending you’d care if I disappeared. It shows up in even the smallest moments…

When I’m talking and you drift away, like my words are background noise you’re tired of hearing.

When I’m hurting and my tears only make you colder, like my feelings are an inconvenience so you punish me for feeling anything at all.

When my voice starts to shake and you look annoyed instead of concerned, like my emotions are a mess I should clean up quietly.

When I try to explain what I need and you sigh, like loving me is exhausting.

It’s like loving someone who’s allergic to being needed, so I’ve learned to swallow my needs just to keep the peace, but now I can barely taste myself anymore.

And I hate how pathetic it feels — staying, hoping for something as small as being missed. The darkness in my chest isn’t the fear that you don’t love me—it’s the fear of being right. The fear that I could leave and your life wouldn’t even glitch.

You’d sleep fine.

You’d eat dinner.

Your life would look the same, just minus the girl who kept begging to matter.

So I keep pretending this is enough.

I keep pretending I’m strong enough to stay.

I keep pretending I don’t already know how this ends.

I keep pretending I’m not waiting for the final proof I don’t matter.

Because if I leave and you don’t come after me, then every fear I’ve swallowed becomes true. And we both know how this story ends: one day I’ll finally walk away with a broken heart, and you’ll let me — like it’s nothing.

I’m sorry I’m sad.

I’m sorry it's hard for me to love myself.

I'm sorry I can’t seem to get it right.

I know this isn’t what you expected when you held tiny little me in your arms so long ago.

I’m sorry.

That the guy who hurt her, who constantly snapped at her for no reason, who matched her tears with aggression, who made her feel like she was both too much and not enough at the same time — that wasn’t really him.

That couldn’t be him. That was just a temporary version of him. That was the darkness, the depression, twisting him, making him cruel. The real him was buried beneath that, waiting for the light, waiting for someone to hold on long enough to find him.

She saw the hurt nobody else noticed, the bruises beneath the anger, the scared little kid hiding behind it all. She fell in love with the idea of who he could be once the hurt faded, once the anger stopped, once someone finally stayed.

She clung to the good moments like oxygen, replaying them over and over, stacking them like proof against the nights she cried herself raw. She tried to convince herself — and the tiny scared little girl inside her — that she was worth it. Worth the heartbreak. Worth the chaos. Worth the endless hoping.

She stayed not just for him, but for her younger self, too.

The little girl who had been waiting forever for someone to stay, someone to love her, someone to choose her. Walking away felt like stabbing that little girl in the chest, stabbing her own heart, stabbing the part of her that had waited forever. She wanted him to be okay so badly that she convinced herself staying meant love.

But it was never healthy. Never.

The highs that followed the lows like oxygen after drowning. The nights spent replaying every word, every touch, every lie, every kiss — trying to make sense of how someone who swore they loved you could press the knife in deeper each time, watching you bleed and still calling it devotion. How love could taste like safety one moment, and deliberate cruelty the next. How the same hands that held you so tenderly could also be the ones to break you, over and over, as if shattering you was proof that you were theirs.

The chaos around him. The chaos inside her. Holding on with bleeding hands, convincing herself love meant endurance, that enough effort could rewrite the story. Wanting him to change. Wanting herself to be enough.

C’mon baby, you know I love you. I don’t want to hurt you but I can’t help it. It’s how I show my love. You’re just so weak and insecure baby, it makes me love you more.

I want to corrupt you, you know you want that too baby. Otherwise you wouldn’t keep looking at me with so much trust every time you come back.

It’s okay baby, I know I broke your nose and your face is a little beat up but you’re still beautiful to me.

I know I know, it’s confusing to have me comforting you now after I did that. You know I hurt you because I love you so much.

I needed to show you what happens when you really don’t listen, just listen to me please. You know I’m only trying to help you. You’ve been so good baby, so good.