I was never the favorite....just the broken one.

They call me the pampered one, the spoiled one they claim,
The angry, the stubborn , always the one to blame.
The dramatic, the fragile, “too emotional,” they say,
But no one sees the pieces quietly slipping away.

No one knows the broken one, the miserable inside,
The scared little soul with too much to hide.
The one who cries softly when no one can see,
The one barely holding what’s left of me.

Today I found myself searching for my old compass again,
The one that once etched my silence beneath my skin.

I stand at the edge of it all, with nothing left to say,
Just one quiet step from letting it all slip away.

I was the child who claimed to be the favorite one,
The one most loved, the chosen one.
I wore that belief like a shield so tight,
Till reality shattered it in a single light.

I’ve always been the quiet one, the one who doesn’t speak,
The “rude” one, the distant one, the stubborn and the weak.
The one who chose the wrong paths, or so they always say,
The one who somehow never finds the right way.

Always the one left out, just slightly out of place,
A stranger in familiar rooms, a forgotten face.
And when I see them smiling, living fine without me there,
I feel this quiet urge to slowly fade into thin air.

I see it even in my father’s eyes now,
A distance I don’t understand, don’t know how.
Where I once searched for warmth, for a place secure,
Now I feel like a weight he has to endure.

Like I turned into something he never chose,
A quiet burden no one openly shows…
A shadow of a child he can’t quite embrace,
Standing there, feeling more like a curse than a face.

I chose to be rude, built walls made of pride,
Cause being seen as weak is something I hide.
It’s easier to harden, to push them away,
Than let them witness me slowly decay.

I wish I could open up, just once, be real,
Tell someone the weight of all that I feel,
How heavy it gets just to live every day…
But the words never come, they just fade away.

They ask me why I buy stuffed toys at twenty-five,
Like I’m too old for the ways I survive.
But they don’t see the nights I quietly fall apart,
Holding them close just to soften my heart.

It’s easier than speaking, than being exposed,
Safer than telling the feelings I’ve closed.

So I write it all down in trembling lines,
Turn my hurt into carefully hidden rhymes,
Then lie on the floor, letting the cold sink in,
While random songs echo the chaos within.

So this is how it feels to be the “favorite” one,
The younger child, the so-called chosen one.
A title worn bright for the world to see,
While something fragile breaks quietly in me.

They see the label, the love, the place I’m in,
But not the cracks I carry beneath my skin.
Cause behind every word they think they’ve known…
I was never the favorite....just the broken one.