#muchierthanever

Suddenly, my eyes always find yours.

Suddenly, I’m writing stupid lines

about how my heart is folding for yours.

You’re gentle and kind,

you’re amusing and sooo fine.

I don’t know what it is that I’m feeling,

but I know I want to know more of you.

I want to lay in the grass

and hear you talk about what made you, you.

I want to know all your quirks,

and know just what to do to make you feel better when it hurts.

I don’t know why I want to be close to you,

but I guess I don’t really need to.

Suddenly, songs make me think of you,

like that one that says,

“I’ve had a crush on you, just like first day of school.

she liked the ocean,

not just for its calm,

but for the way it raged — quietly.

she wanted to be seen,

but feared the moment anyone truly looked.

not because she had secrets,

but because she was one.

she loved too loudly in her mind,

and too softly in her actions.

said too little,

thought too much.

told herself to be small,

then broke her own rule

with every heartbeat.

she lived in the land of maybe,

never sure if she was too much or not enough.

always drifting between who she was,

and who she thought she should be.

uncertainty wasn’t just a feeling —

it was her mother tongue.

she knew how to mend others

with words dipped in warmth,

but never found the thread

to stitch her own wounds.

she called it helping.

some days, she called it hypocrisy.

they told her to open up.

so she did —

softly,

slowly,

like peeling back skin.

and they called her too much.

too emotional.

too naive.

too intense.

she cried in languages

they didn’t bother to learn.

she knew so many words,

in so many tongues —

but never found the right one

to stop being the villain

in someone else’s story.

she forgot things —

appointments, keys,

why she entered a room.

but remembered every word that made her feel like too much,

or not enough.

she shook when she sang,

but still walked onto the stage.

trembling,

and brilliant.

she held poems in her bones

and kindness in the spaces where the world had tried to make her hard.

she wasn’t easy to understand,

but if you listened long enough,

you’d hear waves.

and sometimes,

she just didn’t try.

she let the world move without her,

let the texts sit unread,

let the sunlight hit the floor and not her face.

she was tired of proving things.

of fixing things.

of pretending she knew where she was going.

because truth is,

she didn’t.

she never did.

and maybe that was the saddest part —

not the pain,

but how familiar it felt.

so she stayed quiet.

not because she had nothing to say,

but because no one knew how to hold it

without trying to fix her.

and she didn’t want fixing.

she just wanted to be

messy,

muddled,

half-light,

half-seafoam.

and still

loved.

people look at me and decide i’m fine.

because i’m pretty.

because i can hold a conversation.

because i know how to make them comfortable.

they don’t see the way my brain freezes mid-sentence.

or how loud everything gets when i’m trying to think.

or how much energy it takes to act like it’s easy.

because if you’re smiling, if you’re put together, if you’re “well-spoken” —

you can’t possibly be struggling, right?

in their eyes, i’m too polished to be neurodivergent.

too charming to be overwhelmed.

too articulate to be lost.

but i know better.

i know what it costs to move through their world.

i know how many times i’ve had to translate myself just to be understood.

i’ll never be broken enough for them to believe me.

and honestly?

i’m done trying to look the right kind of broken.

there’s something sitting

right beneath my ribs,

not quite pain, not quite fear—

just a quiet ache

that doesn’t have a name

I don’t know what I’m feeling,

but—

I’m still that girl

who falls in love with the ocean

every time she hears waves crash like lullabies

I’m still that girl

who bakes butter cookies at 2 a.m.

just because the smell feels just right

I’m still that girl

who plays her guitar when the world gets too heavy

and lets the chords carry what her words can’t

I’m still that girl

who hides between pages during class breaks,

not because she’s lost,

but because books have always known how to find her

I’m still that girl

who picks up litter on the street

because somewhere deep down,

she believes kindness echoes

I’m still that girl

who smiles at babies she passes,

like their tiny giggles are magic spells

that could save the world, save the soul

I’m still that girl

who wants to pet every single animal she sees

no matter how late she’s running or where she’s going

I’m still that girl

with galaxies of dreams

pressed into the seams of her soul

I’m still that girl

who wants to do everything,

be everything,

all at once

like Barbie

but a little messier,

a little softer,

with more glitter under her skin

and a storm behind her eyes

and maybe I don’t know what I’m feeling

but I do know

I’m still me

and that’s something

that no confusion, no heartache, no future

can take away

And lunch.

And probably dinner—

Just to look in the mirror and hate myself less.

Not love.

Never love.

Just a quieter kind of disgust.

I cry in the shower because I can’t cry in front of anyone else.

God forbid I feel too much—

That’s the quickest way to make people leave.

So I smile when I want to scream.

I flirt when I want to vanish.

I soften my voice so no one hears the edge in it.

Because if I’m angry, I’m “unstable.”

If I’m honest, I’m “too much.”

If I’m quiet, I’m “cold.”

If I speak up, I’m “a bitch.”

And the fucked up part?

I keep trying anyway.

I keep running in this endless loop—

Trying to be desirable, lovable, palatable.

I’d rather be hungry than be too much.

I’d rather disappear than make someone uncomfortable.

I don’t want to die.

I just want to be small enough

That nobody has to carry me.

Including me.

everyone wants love.

but what they really want

is to be noticed.

not the surface stuff —

not the “you’re pretty”

or “you’re so smart.”

but the kind that says:

“don’t do that —

she doesn’t like it.”

the kind that remembers

how you take your tea

and when your silence means

“please ask again.”

love,

real love,

is about paying attention.

it’s knowing when your voice shifts

just a little.

when you say “I’m fine”

but your eyes don’t follow.

it’s about being watched,

not in a way that cages you,

but in a way that holds you

gently,

accurately.

truth is,

i think I really loved you.

because I noticed

too much.

the way your words

got shorter

when something was wrong.

the space between your lines

grew louder than what you wrote.

but maybe that wasn’t love.

maybe it was just

a habit I learned —

studying people

so I could be

what they wanted.

shapeshifting

to be chosen.

to be enough.

to be kept.

and maybe that’s what hurts the most —

not that you didn’t love me,

but that no one ever stayed

long enough

to ask who I really was.

and the fact that they believed it all —

believed the version I built for them —

that makes it worse.

because it wasn’t real.

it was performance.

it was survival.

maybe it’s a good thing you’ll probably leave,

like all the others.

because the truth is,

even I don’t know who I am.

what’s underneath all of this?

maybe I’m all of it,

and none of it.

maybe these selves

weren’t lies.

maybe they’re just parts of me,

pieces in a puzzle

I’m still figuring out.

after all…

we are human.

we can be everything,

and nothing,

at once.

now it’s up to you…

the mask’s been lifted,

the game’s on the table.

you see me.

you know me.

but will you stay?

will you try to unravel

what’s underneath

all of this?

will you see me

without turning away?

because this time,

I won’t try to change.

I’ll just let myself

be.

they say i’m moody.

as if that explains why the world feels like static

and my brain flickers like bad reception.

as if “moody” could possibly cover

the flood that rises when the lights are too bright

and the questions come too fast.

i’m not moody.

i’m a glitch in a system that runs on boring.

i short-circuit when the rules don’t make sense,

and no one ever bothers to explain them —

just expects me to keep up, keep quiet, keep pretty.

i get called difficult

because i don’t always smile

and i want things my way

and sometimes i talk too much

and sometimes i disappear for days.

but maybe i’m not difficult.

maybe i’m just the download they couldn’t handle.

they want effortless,

but i’m electricity.

and honestly?

if that’s too much —

they can go reboot somewhere else.