Vie De SouSou

We started

as two separate stars,

each with our own light.

But somewhere

in the space between us,

you decided

mine was brighter.

•

“I love your hair,”

you said.

Then showed up

the next day

with the same shade

painting your roots,

claiming

you’d always wanted to try it.

•

Every interest I confessed

became your sudden passion.

“Oh,

I’ve been into that forever,”

you’d say,

with practiced ease.

•

My hobbies

became your hobbies.

My dreams

became your dreams.

Until I couldn’t tell

where I ended

and you began.

•

You wore

my personality

like a costume

you could borrow,

while dismissing

the things I genuinely loved

as

“boring”

or

“not my thing”—

until they were.

•

You became fluent

in the language

of my life,

while convincing everyone

I was the one

copying you.

•

The friendship

turned to quicksand.

The more I tried

to find myself,

the deeper

I sank

into your version of me.

•

You left me hollow—

a shell

of borrowed pieces,

wondering

if anything about me

was ever truly mine,

or if I was simply

the rough draft

of the person

you decided to become.

•

Now,

I’m learning

to remember

who I was

before the mirror.

Before the imitation.

Before the friendship

became

a slow-motion

identity theft

that almost

erased me

I’m teaching myself to hoard small things—

the book I’m reading stays unnamed,

the café where I write remains a secret,

the song that makes me cry lives only in my headphones.

•

For the first time in years,

I’m keeping pieces of myself

locked away from you,

and it feels

like learning

to breathe underwater.

•

Distance tastes like freedom

and terror

in equal measure.

Three days without texting you

feels like rebellion,

like I’m committing

some quiet crime

against the person

I used to be—

the one

who told you everything.

•

I catch myself

starting to share,

then stopping mid-sentence,

my hand hovering

over your name

in my contacts

like it’s on fire.

•

What if you take this too?

What if my new haircut

becomes your inspiration?

What if my therapy breakthrough

becomes your social media wisdom?

•

I’m building walls now,

not to keep you out completely,

but to keep me in—

to protect

the tender shoots

of who I’m trying to become.

•

My journal stays hidden.

My plans stay whispered

to the mirror

instead of you.

I’m creating sacred spaces

where your voice

can’t follow.

•

Some days

the guilt is crushing.

Who am I

to withhold myself

from someone

who “cares” so much?

But I’m learning

that caring

without respect

for boundaries

isn’t caring at all.

•

I’m practicing saying,

“I’d rather not talk about it,”

and letting the silence stretch

until it feels normal,

until my privacy

feels like a right

instead of a betrayal.

•

Slowly,

carefully,

I’m excavating myself

from the cave-in of us,

dusting off pieces

of my identity

that I thought

were buried forever.

•

My interests

are mine again.

My pain

is mine to process.

My joy

is mine to feel

without wondering

how you’ll make it

about you.

•

The space between us

is becoming sacred ground

where I plant seeds

of the person I was

before I became your mirror.

And for the first time

in longer than I can remember,

I’m excited

to see what grows

in the silence.

What blooms

when it’s just me

She carries two passports in her heart,

neither one quite home.

In the land where she first drew breath,

they ask where she’s really from.

•

Her tongue stumbles

on the language

her parents spoke in whispers,

while the words that flow like water

mark her as other—

always other.

•

At family gatherings

across the ocean,

aunts pinch her cheeks and sigh,

“You’ve become so foreign, little one.”

•

But she is not

half of anything.

She is not torn

or broken.

She is the bridge

between two shores,

the song

in two tongues spoken.

•

In her veins

run rivers

that have never met on maps.

In her dreams

dance rhythms

from both her mother’s

and father’s laps.

•

She belongs

to morning prayers

and midnight birthday candles,

to spices that burn the tongue,

and stories

only she can carry.

•

Let them call her foreigner—

she knows

a deeper truth.

Home is not

a place on earth,

but the wholeness

of her youth.

•

She is the keeper

of two histories,

the guardian

of two names.

And in her singular existence

burns

a thousand ancestor flames.

•

She belongs

to herself

completely—

to the space

between the known,

where borders blur

to nothing,

and she stands,

beautifully,

I want to backpack through Europe alone,

to get lost in strange cities where no one knows my name,

to make decisions on a whim without consulting anyone—

But I also want someone to call

when I see the sunset over Prague,

someone who’d understand

why I’m crying at the beauty of it all.

•

I want to be the woman

who moves across the country for a dream job,

who signs her own lease

and hangs her own pictures exactly where she wants them—

But I also want someone

to help me carry the heavy furniture,

to argue about where the couch should go,

to make the space feel like home

instead of just mine.

•

I want to stay up all night

reading books that change me,

to have thoughts so big

they can’t fit in conversations,

to grow into someone

I haven’t met yet—

But I also want someone

to share the revelation on page 237,

someone who gets excited

about my midnight epiphanies

instead of telling me to go to sleep.

•

I am terrified

of losing myself

in someone else’s orbit,

of becoming half a person

who can’t remember

what she wanted

before she wanted him—

But I am equally terrified

of missing out

on the kind of love

that doesn’t diminish you

but doubles everything beautiful

about being alive.

•

I want to be ready for love

when it finds me,

but I’m not sure

if that means

having all my pieces

perfectly arranged

or learning to trust

that the right person

won’t ask me to be smaller

than I am,

won’t dim my light

but help it burn brighter.

•

Maybe readiness

isn’t about having all the answers,

but about knowing

that I can hold both truths

at once:

I am complete alone,

and I would love

to share that completeness

with someone

who is complete