A.C

not because the night refuses me,

but because my thoughts are stacked

like chairs in a room

that will never be empty.

I am moving through hours

like a ghost in a crowded house,

feeling the weight of every second,

every small demand,

every expectation

that I can’t seem to lay down.

I am awake and aching,

alert and exhausted,

hungry for quiet

that never comes.

Sleep is a stranger

I remember fondly,

but it doesn’t recognize me anymore,

and I am left

wide-eyed, worn-out,

counting the slow tick

of a clock

that never lets me rest.

It circles.

It comes back wearing different shoes

and asks me if I remember it.

I do.

That’s the problem.

I’ve lived a thousand almosts.

Almost leaving.

Almost staying.

Almost becoming someone

who doesn’t flinch at quiet.

People say

you’re strong,

but what they mean is

I learned how to carry weight

without asking who put it there.

Some days I feel ancient.

Not wise.

Just used.

Like furniture that’s been moved

too many times

and now wobbles

no matter how careful you are.

I don’t chase dreams anymore.

I negotiate with them.

We meet halfway.

They lower their expectations.

I lower my voice.

There’s a version of me

who thought life would arrive

fully formed,

like a package with tracking.

Instead it drips in slowly.

Missed calls.

Half healed habits.

Moments that only make sense

three breakdowns later.

I’m not lost.

I’m paused

in a place no one names

because it doesn’t look dramatic enough

to matter.

But I’m still here.

Breathing.

Watching.

Waiting for the moment

when standing still

finally counts as movement.

i over-observe

patterns confess

faster than people

i stopped explaining

that was the leak

consistency is louder

than intention

if it costs my peace

it was never affordable

i don’t need closure

i need distance

forgiveness is optional

discernment isn’t

i don’t argue

i adjust access

most loyalty is convenience

with better marketing

i don’t miss you

i miss the version of me

that hadn’t learned better yet

silence isn’t passive

it’s selective

i’m not guarded

i’m curated

a few seconds behind myself.

Like my body arrived first

and my mind is still

looking for parking.

The world feels slightly misaligned

voices come through like they’re underwater,

time stretches thin,

then snaps

without warning.

I touch things

to make sure they’re real.

Cold counters.

My own pulse.

The weight of my name

when I say it in my head

and it doesn’t answer back.

Memory doesn’t feel like remembering anymore.

It feels like haunting.

Like I’m walking through rooms

where versions of me

are still sitting on the floor,

waiting for something

that already happened.

I watch my life

from a safe distance

laugh at the right moments,

nod when expected,

exist convincingly enough

that no one asks questions.

Sometimes I wonder

if I ever fully came back

from the moment that broke me,

or if I just learned

how to mimic continuity.

There are gaps in my days

that don’t feel empty

they feel sealed.

Like something important is buried there

and my mind

changed the locks.

I don’t feel sad.

I don’t feel happy.

I feel elsewhere.

Like a place without coordinates,

where I float just above my own life

watching it move on

without me.

And still

I keep breathing.

I keep showing up.

I keep leaving fingerprints

on a world I’m not sure

I’m inside of.

Maybe this is what survival looks like

when it’s quiet.

When the danger is over

but the body

hasn’t been informed yet.

Like if I replay it enough,

it’ll change its ending.

The air smells like something I used to be.

You know that feeling

when the world tilts just enough

to remind you

you’ve stood here before.

I don’t miss you.

I miss the version of time

where my hands didn’t shake

around happiness.

Where love didn’t feel temporary

by default.

There are moments that feel borrowed

like I’m visiting a life

that was never mine to keep.

Laughter echoes differently there.

Even the silence feels younger.

Sometimes I think memory is a place.

Not a thing.

A room you stumble into

by accident

when a song hits the wrong nerve

or the light falls just right.

I exist in fragments now.

Half-formed thoughts.

Unfinished sentences.

But there was a time

I felt whole

without trying.

Maybe that’s what growing up is

learning how to carry

what you can’t go back to

without letting it hollow you out.

I don’t want to rewind.

I don’t want to forget.

I just want to stand

in this moment

long enough

to recognize myself

before it slips past again.

in flashes

not wholes

I miss the way you laughed

before everything split

before I learned

love could change faces mid sentence

You were never just gone

you were always elsewhere

and I kept reaching

for whoever was closest to kind

Some versions of you held me

like I was safe

Others watched me drown

and called it distance

I loved you carefully

like a glass animal

already cracked

like if I moved too fast

you would become someone

I could not recognize

I do not miss the fear

the way my chest stayed tight

even on good days

waiting for the switch

waiting for the fall

But I miss the illusion

that we were building something stable

out of moments

that could not agree on reality

Missing you feels wrong

because I remember

how much of myself I lost

trying to stay

Still

sometimes my heart reaches back

for the version of you

that knew my softness

and did not weaponize it

I let that version go

not because it was not real

but because it could not protect me

I miss you

and I forgive myself for that

Then I choose distance

again

like I’m halfway packed

even when I don’t know where I’m going

Not leaving

just prepared to

I keep versions of myself

on standby

The quieter one

The meaner one

The one who disappears

without making it dramatic

People think I’m indecisive

I think I’m adaptable

I learned early

that staying the same too long

makes people comfortable enough

to stop choosing you

I’ve reinvented myself

out of boredom

out of survival

out of spite

Some days I miss

the person I was before

I learned how to pivot so fast

She stayed longer

She believed explanations

She didn’t treat exits

like muscle memory

I don’t burn bridges

I loosen the bolts

Just in case

I love deeply

but I keep one foot angled toward the door

not because I want to leave

but because I refuse

to be stranded again

My life isn’t chaos

It’s contingency plans

It’s quiet calculations

It’s knowing exactly

how much of myself to give

without bleeding out

And maybe one day

I’ll unpack fully

Maybe I’ll stop living like movement

is the safest personality

But for now

I stay ready

Not to run

Just to survive the moment

when staying stops loving me back

in a way that feels unfinished.

Like a message I rehearse in my head,

watch them get opened,

then left unanswered

like silence has learned my name.

I was the only one taken.

The only one who grew up

packing life into trash bags

while they stayed behind,

growing side by side

in a world I was ripped from.

Now I want to be closer.

As an adult.

I want phone calls that don’t feel awkward,

holidays that don’t feel like visiting strangers

who share my face.

But there’s this distance

thick, quiet, polite.

They don’t say it hurts.

I don’t either.

We just orbit each other carefully,

afraid if we touch

we’ll collide with the years we lost.

I’m jealous of them.

Of the closeness they built without me,

the inside jokes I can’t laugh at,

the history I wasn’t there for.

Foster care taught me survival,

not togetherness.

Taught me to adapt,

to detach,

to love with one foot already halfway out the door.

And now my chest stings

every time I see them laughing,

sharing memories I only get secondhand,

wondering if I’ll ever be part of that world.

I want to say,

I missed you.

But even that feels rehearsed,

like it needs permission

from the past we can’t change.

So I carry it quietly

this ache,

this want,

this love with nowhere to land.

Because being the only one taken

means learning how to miss people

who are still alive,

still breathing,

still technically mine.

And sometimes that hurts more

than if I’d never known them at all

In versions.

In mood swings that had names

and voices that never warned me before taking the wheel.

Some days you were soft

hands gentle, eyes apologetic,

speaking futures like promises were easy things to keep.

Other days you were a stranger

wearing the same face,

using the same mouth

to undo everything the last one said.

And every time I tried to hold you accountable,

you split.

Not metaphorically

literally fractured into explanations

that made me feel cruel for being hurt.

“I don’t remember.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“They didn’t mean it.”

But someone still said it.

Someone still broke me.

I became fluent in survival

studying your triggers

like they were landmines,

measuring my tone,

shrinking my needs

so I wouldn’t wake the wrong version of you.

I loved you while walking on glass,

and you called it intimacy.

You apologized beautifully.

That was your strongest personality

the one who cried,

the one who swore they’d get help,

the one who made me believe love could fix

what accountability never touched.

But love doesn’t heal what refuses treatment.

Love doesn’t excuse damage

just because it comes in pieces.

I stopped knowing who I was

because every version of you

needed a different me.

The caretaker.

The punching bag.

The understanding one.

The one who forgives

before the wound even closes.

And maybe you’re not evil.

Maybe you’re sick.

But I am allowed to leave

a house that keeps catching fire

even if no one means to light the match.

I am not a bad person

for choosing consistency over chaos.

I am not cruel

for wanting one truth,

one apology that sticks,

one love that doesn’t reset overnight.

I loved all of you.

But I lost myself doing it.

And this

this is me choosing the first version of peace

that doesn’t disappear

when the room changes.

Like the universe finally turned its face toward me

and said now.

Sleep becomes optional.

Fear becomes a rumor.

My mouth moves faster than consequences

and everything I say feels ordained.

I’m brilliant.

I’m funny.

I’m finally unafraid.

I text people I haven’t thought about in years.

I make plans I can’t keep.

I believe every thought

because it arrives wearing confidence.

And in the moment

it feels clean.

It feels right.

It feels like I’ve cracked the code

everyone else is too cautious to touch.

Then the lights go out.

Not gently.

Not all at once.

Just enough to see the mess I made.

The crash isn’t sadness

it’s inventory.

Replaying conversations.

Reading my own messages like evidence.

Apologizing in advance

for a version of me

I barely recognize.

Shame settles in my chest

like a weight I forgot I agreed to carry.

Was I honest

or was I reckless?

Was I confident

or just uncontained?

Living like this is a negotiation

between euphoria and consequence.

Between wanting to trust my instincts

and knowing they can betray me.

Up feels like freedom.

Down feels like punishment.

And I live in the whiplash

trying to forgive myself

for the moments

I felt the most alive.

Because the cruelest part

is that mania feels like me

and the crash feels like proof

that I can’t always trust myself.

And every day is the same quiet question:

How do you grieve something

that feels so good

but costs you so much?

and it feels like déjà vu

without the sting.

The way you sprawl out on the floor,

unafraid to take up space.

The way your joy is loud

and unapologetic.

The way you assume

someone will come when you call.

That’s the part that gets me.

Because I remember learning early

how to fold myself smaller,

how to read the room

before I spoke,

how love felt like something

you could misplace.

And there you are

moving through the world

like it wants you here.

I don’t resent you for it.

But sometimes it knocks the air out of me.

Not because it hurts

but because it shows me

how simple it could have been.

I watch myself respond to you

without thinking twice.

I show up.

I listen.

I love you on your worst days

the same as your best ones.

No debate.

No hesitation.

And that’s when it hits me

If loving you is this natural,

then love was never supposed to be complicated.

You don’t heal me by trying.

You heal me by existing.

By letting me witness a childhood

that doesn’t carry the weight

mine did.

By reminding me, quietly,

that what I needed

was never impossible.

It was always just love

given freely.

that you don’t have to turn every bruise

into a lesson,

every heartbreak into a personality trait,

every disappointment into a reason

you should’ve known better.

You keep carrying things

that were never meant to be yours

other people’s moods,

other people’s chaos,

other people’s half-grown feelings

that they water with your tears.

You walk around calling yourself dramatic

because no one ever taught you

that sensitivity is just intuition

without the apology.

You keep falling for potential,

for almost,

for maybe-if-I-just-try-harder.

You romanticize the crumbs

because you’ve never been given the whole loaf.

But hear me:

you deserve something steady.

Something soft.

Something that doesn’t make you question

if you’re too much

or not enough

in the same breath.

Dumb dumb girl,

when will you ever learn?

Maybe when the ache in your chest

finally feels more familiar

than the noise around you

or maybe when you decide

you’re done mistaking survival for

Love

that you can grow out of hell

without smelling like smoke.

We came from the same house

the same cracked walls,

the same yelling,

the same empty fridge,

the same parents

who loved their addictions

more than they ever learned to love us properly.

We were two kids

watching the same storms,

sleeping under the same collapsing roof,

learning early

that “home” can hurt you

more than strangers ever could.

But she

she walked through the fire

and didn’t let it cling to her.

Didn’t inhale it.

Didn’t keep it.

Didn’t become it.

While I was dragging trauma behind me

like a metal chain,

she cut hers loose

with quiet determination

and a spine made of something

I still can’t name.

She never touched a drink

trying to forget.

Never touched a drug

trying to stay sane.

Never numbed herself

to survive the memories

the way I did.

She did the impossible

stepped out of the chaos

and said,

“No. This ends with me.”

She went to school.

Showed up.

Studied.

Graduated.

Built a life

from the scraps we were given

and somehow turned it into something

beautiful.

A career.

A future.

A ring on her finger

and love that doesn’t hurt

the way ours did.

And when it came to our parents

the ones who taught us

everything except stability

she did what I still can’t:

She ghosted them.

Clean.

Cold.

Final.

Not out of cruelty,

but out of self-preservation.

She walked away

from the people

who never learned how to stay.

And God

I am so proud of her.

So fucking proud.

Not because she escaped,

but because she refused

to drag their darkness

into her light.

She’s the version of us

that got free.

The proof that our story

could’ve ended differently.

The reminder

that blood makes family

but choices make peace.

People call her strong.

Resilient.

Disciplined.

But I know the truth:

she’s a survivor

who learned to save herself

in a world that kept trying

to swallow us whole.

My sister is the miracle

our childhood never deserved

and the courage

I’m still trying to grow into.

when childhood does.

People think it’s something you outgrow,

like shoes that get too small,

like fears you leave under the bed.

But trauma

trauma grows with you.

Learns your name.

Sits in your chest like a second heartbeat

you didn’t ask for.

Childhood trauma teaches you things

you were never meant to learn.

It teaches you to scan every room

before your body even enters it.

Teaches you to read danger

in the air,

in the silence,

in the way someone breathes wrong.

It teaches you how to shrink

so other people can take up space.

How to apologize

before you speak.

How to brace yourself

for impact

that isn’t coming

but feels like it is.

It turns your nervous system

into a fire alarm

trapped on repeat

long after the flames are gone.

And relationships

God, relationships become landmines.

You love too hard

or not at all.

You cling

or you run.

You build walls

and then cry when no one can get in.

You tell people you’re “fine”

because that’s the language trauma taught you:

survive first,

feel later

if ever.

Childhood trauma makes you grow up early,

but keeps part of you frozen

in the moment everything broke.

You become a walking contradiction:

a grown body

with a child inside it

still waiting

for someone to say,

“You’re safe now.”

It steals your sleep.

Your trust.

Your softness.

Turns comfort into suspicion

and love into a battlefield

you never signed up to fight in.

But the thing they don’t tell you

the thing they whisper only in recovery rooms

and late-night breakdowns

is that trauma survivors

are architects.

We rebuild ourselves

from parts we didn’t choose.

We learn to parent the child

that wasn’t protected.

We learn to breathe again

even when our lungs shake.

We learn to love

with hands that only knew fear.

We learn to stay

in a world that taught us

to always be ready to leave.

Childhood trauma leaves marks,

yes

scars that ache in the rain,

memories that hit like flashbangs,

triggers you didn’t build

but now have to navigate.

But it also creates people

who feel deeply,

understand quietly,

love fiercely,

and rise

even when everything in them

was designed to collapse.

Childhood trauma breaks you

but somehow,

somehow,

you still grow.

And that growth?

That survival?

That stubborn, relentless resilience?

That is the part

the trauma never planned on