There is a certain kind of silence that seeps into your bones,
not the kind that comes when the world sleeps,
but the kind that lingers when everyone is awake and alive and laughing,
when the streets are loud and the lights are on
and the doors are open—
yet somehow,
you’re still standing outside in the dark,
watching a life that could have been yours
if only you weren’t so far behind,
if only you weren’t always the shadow,
the afterthought,
the person whose name never settles on anyone’s tongue unless they need something,
unless they’re bored,
unless they’re reaching for someone they can forget just as quickly.
And there are moments,
quiet, sharp, unbearable moments,
when I catch my reflection
not just in mirrors, but in windows, in puddles, in glass I didn’t mean to look into—
and I see not a person, not a self,
but a collection of failures disguised as flesh,
a body weighed down by all the things it never became,
by the people who never stayed,
by the memories that never formed because I never really lived,
I only existed,
floating from day to day like smoke that refuses to disappear,
even though the fire’s long gone.
I hate the way I feel things too deeply and yet not at all—
how my chest is filled with so much rage, so much regret,
it feels like I’m constantly on the edge of bursting open,
of shattering into a thousand unrecognizable pieces,
and still, when I try to scream,
nothing comes out—
only the echo of a voice I lost a long time ago
when I stopped believing anyone would ever truly listen,
truly care,
truly see me.
And I keep trying,
I swear to whatever’s left of this ruined thing I call a soul—
I keep trying to be better,
to smile when it hurts,
to speak when the weight in my throat feels like drowning,
to pretend I’m okay when the only thing I’m sure of is
that I’m not,
and maybe I never have been—
but no one ever looks closely enough to see the bruises on my spirit,
the ones that don’t fade,
the ones that are shaped like loneliness,
like shame,
like the unrelenting fear that maybe the world would spin just the same
if I simply stopped being here.
I hate how much I hate myself—
how every time I walk into a room,
I feel like I’m apologizing for existing,
like I’m dragging this useless weight of a body
through spaces that were never meant for me,
through conversations where I don’t belong,
through friendships that are paper-thin,
always one unanswered message away from vanishing—
and God,
how do I mourn things I never had?
How do I carry grief for a life I never even touched?
I don’t know how to forgive myself
for all the years I’ve wasted,
all the laughter I didn’t share,
all the times I sat quietly in the corners of rooms,
watching joy pass me by like a train I couldn’t afford to board.
And now it feels too late—
too late to become someone better,
someone whole,
someone worthy of love that doesn’t have an expiration date.
And there are nights when my hands shake
with the quiet fury of trying to resist the pull of harm,
of not knowing what else to do with all this pain that has no language,
with this sadness that has no shape,
no form—
just a constant pressure beneath my ribs
where hope used to live.
And even now,
writing this,
it feels like I’m speaking into a void that doesn’t echo—
a voice with no receiver,
a letter to no one—
because I’ve never been the one people choose,
never been the one they reach for when the world goes dark,
and even in the deepest corners of my own heart,
I wonder if I’d miss myself
if I were gone.