I swear I am not obsessed with you. I just seem to carry you into places I cannot consciously reach. You appear in my sleep with that stupid softness you have, and suddenly I am awake with an ache I cannot explain without making it sound like love.

Perchance it is not love.

Maybe it is simply the memory of your mouth finding mine, replaying itself somewhere beneath my ribs. Maybe it is the way your name feels different when I am half-asleep, when there is no pride left in me to pretend I do not miss you.

In the dream, I touched you like I had been waiting forever. I remember the warmth of you, the quiet between us, the way you looked at me as though there was nowhere else you needed to be. And when you leaned into me, something inside me gave way so quietly I almost missed it.

It is strange how the smallest things can disturb you.

A hand resting where it shouldn’t. A familiar laugh. The memory of someone’s voice when they are tired. The way they say your name without knowing that you have been collecting every version of it. I can go an entire day without thinking of you, and then one insignificant thing will pull at the thread, and suddenly I am unraveling all over again.

I woke up reaching for you.

There was nothing there, obviously. Just a cold patch of bedsheet and the humiliating realization that my heart had not yet caught up with the fact that you were only a dream.

I lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that I am fine.

Because I am.

I am not in love with you. I am not counting the hours until I see you again. I am not secretly turning every song into something about us. I am not replaying every little moment and wondering if you felt it too.

I am simply haunted by you.

There is a difference.

At least, that is what I keep telling myself.

Because I can convince myself I do not want you all day. I can be perfectly reasonable in the daylight, perfectly capable of remembering that you are just a person and I am just a person and whatever this is does not have to become anything.

Then night comes.

And somewhere between consciousness and sleep, all my carefully constructed indifference dissolves.

You find me there.

And for a few hours, I stop pretending I don’t want you.

I thought I understood the quiet architecture of my own heart—what could move it, what couldn’t, what deserved to stay outside its walls. I believed some things about myself with such certainty that they felt less like opinions and more like facts.

Then I met you.

I met you in fragments.

In the way your laughter lingered with me long after you had gone. In the strange comfort of your presence, as though my soul had recognised something my mind was still trying to name. In the way I began collecting little pieces of you without meaning to. In your favourite phrases, the rhythm of your voice, the softness in your eyes when you forgot the world was watching.

You never argued with my beliefs. You never tried to convince me that I was wrong. You simply existed. You smiled as though the universe had never invented sadness. You laughed as though joy had always belonged to you. And somehow, without saying a word, you dismantled every certainty I had ever worn like armour.

Now I catch myself searching for you in crowds that don’t know your name. I measure my days by the moments they contain you. Even silence has become different, because I cannot hear it without wondering what your voice would sound like inside it.

I used to think that love happened after understanding. But you arrived, and I realised understanding is what comes after love.

If the philosophers are right, then we are the stories we tell ourselves. If they are wrong, then perhaps we are simply the people whose names make our hearts forget how to be sensible.

And if you ever asked me what changed—what happened to the person who believed they could explain everything—I don’t think I could answer.

I’d only smile, kiss you, and whisper,

A kiss can destroy a philosophy.

I used to think I was always ready to die young.

I would move through things swiftly, because to me, I have no time to waste. When entering moments, I would think of how much I’ll miss this when I am gone, and if these moments will remain the same when I’m gone to never return. I would not take off my shoes too soon, in case death decided to claim me before I crossed the door.

I was always prepared for a departure. It was always felt like death was just 6 feet away from me, and if it came closer, would I run or just let it do its thing? I always feel like I’m running out of time, so I had to finish everything in time, even when nothing had started yet.

People would ask me about the future. Five years from now. Ten. I would pause, pretend to think, like I was searching for something far away. But the answer was always there, bright and simple in my head: I dont think I would be here by then.

But you know, something in me never agreed, because sometimes and some days, without meaning to, I catch myself waiting for the next day. I lay out new clothes. I think of my family and my friends and feel something soft in my chest. I’m really excited for the next day; my face is so flushed. I smile before I remember I’m not supposed to expect anything.

And it confuses me.

Who am I, if not a terrible liar?

I have seen myself leaving this life a hundred times, in so many different ways; it has stretched too long, and still, somehow, I find myself here every day, still looking at things, still feeling them, still finding myself wanting to stay.

It’s absurd to feel so tired of carrying yourself and still hold on. To feel the weight of being, and yet not let it go. To sit with something that aches and still choose, in the smallest ways, not to leave it behind.

Sometimes it feels like weakness, like I am just a coward who wants to run away from my purpose in life. I am fondling something that hurts me, staying too close to the very thing that exhausts me.

But sometimes, like this week, it feels light, it feels like something else, so much warm. It feels like I have no burden in life, and I realize I am not as ready to disappear as I once believed.

Life feels like this writing, I dont know what I am going to put in the next line, it just reminds me that I don’t have to decide who I am all at once and enjoy the progress.

I think it’s dangerous not to have hope. but hope feels heavy sometimes. So its better to reach for smaller things. a little something to keep me awe, something small enough to make me just stay.

I’ve laughed a lot lately. It felt so good to let loose and feel loose, and for a second, I wasn’t thinking about anything that’s followed me around. I wasn’t thinking about everything I have to do, everything I haven’t done, everything that has been done, everything that needs to be done. not the past, not the cirnge thing I did two months ago. For a long time, I felt so unhaunted. It felt so simple to stand in the sunlight with my friends and not need anything, and to be surrounded by their beautiful laughs.

for a second, I wasn’t living off something that already burned out. I wasn’t carrying old light, trying to just make it through the day.

I was here.
I was whole in that moment.

And I was my sun.

i think i was meant to be a series of ‘almost’

almost loved. almost chosen. almost seen clearly enough to be held without explanation.

theres something wrong with the way i exist, i slip slightly out of alignment with the moment i’m in. feels like everyone is standing on the ground and i’m..half an inch above, watching.

i learned quite early that if you smile at the right time. people don’t notice that you’re not really there.

so i kinda perfected it.

i became the easy one,

the funny (a master of dry jokes) one

the one who understands everything before it’s said and ask for nothing in return.

but inside of me, i was collecting fractures.

tiny. invisible.

i realised, one day, i couldn’t remember what it felt like to be fully present in my own life. everything feels cinematic.

and i think i started to like it.

because when you’re not fully there, nothing can really hurt you. people can leave and it would only just feel like a scene ending, barely life changing. love can miss you, and you can pretend you were never standing in its path.

but then, there are moment. sharp. unbearable. they remind you that you’re still a human regardless. moments that breakthrough, that look that lingers, that voice that says your name and for a moment, feels like it means something. a silence that feels so full of you.

and suddenly, you’re back. too present. too aware. too alive

i start to feel my heartbeat in places i didn’t even know existed. mu chest becomes something i have to carry instead of something i live inside. i remember, all at once, that i want things too. real things.

an ache for loving. an ache for winning. to be chosen. to be stayed for. to be looked at like i’m impossible to not be loved. and oh God, it terrifies me.

the moment i become real, i become breakable. so i do what i know how to do best.

i step half and inch away again

i blur

i soften

i disappear enough to survive

and no one notice. they just say “omg, you’re so easy to be with” and i smile widely, because ofcourse i am.

I’m barely even here.

i take a basket even when i know i will buy more than i can carry, because some part of me always overestimates strength and underestimates weight. the doors open without asking anything of me, and inside everything is painfully intact.

i'm staring at cereal boxes trying to find one that'll stain my heart again. something sugared enough to soften whatever in me has become difficult to reach. the mascots grin with unbearable certainty, as if joy were still simple enough to be poured into a bowl.

i'm pacing the snack aisle looking for an addiction, a sweet treat. some small thing to occupy the mouth so the mind loosens its grip. every packet promises satisfaction in bright colours, and i keep believing packaging has learned how to imitate salvation.

i'm circling the donuts like they'll make my life beautiful. they sit there under warm light, delicate and golden, as though tenderness can be baekd fresh each morning and sold before noon. i imagine buying one and becoming briefly the kind of person whose sadness arrives elegantly, in silence, beside coffee and clean windows.

i'm looking at birthday cards wondering who i have left to congratulate. whose name still belongs naturally in my handwriting. whose milestones i still approach without hesitation, without first measuring what distance has done to affection.

i’m clutching my sleeves in the produce section, as if this particular carrot will cleanse away years of inner turmoil. as if choosing something green is evidence of discipline, of hope, of a future self still worth feeding.

i inspect fruit for bruises with more care than i have ever inspected my own damage.

i’m cradling eggs like precious cargo, lowering them carefully into the basket, protecting fragility with both hands. have i ever been held this gently, with this much quiet precaution? has anyone ever noticed how little pressure it takes before something delicate becomes impossible to restore?

the freezer doors hold my reflection hostage. i catch sight of myself between frozen vegetables and ready meals, pale under artificial light, looking like someone half-finished. someone assembled enough to appear functional, not enough to feel convincing.

near me, a child asks for sweets with the confidence of someone who still believes desire is allowed to speak plainly. somewhere behind aisle seven, someone laughs and for a second it sounds foreign, like hearing a language i used to know.

i hover between the self-checkout and the cashier line longer than necessary, wondering if it'd be nice to go through something with someone else for once. if being asked how my day is might briefly resemble being seen. if handing things over, one by one, and having someone acknowledge them aloud might feel like confession.

the cashier asks if i want a receipt.

and i almost say yes, bbecause there are days i want proof i was here at all, that i made it through another day, that i selected what was needed, paid what it cost, and left with something to carry home.

outside, the bags bite into my fingers all the way back until they redden.

it feels right that even necessity should leave marks.

There is a difference.

The things I love pull at me without permission. They tap on the glass of my mind when I am supposed to be serious. They distract me when I am trying to be practical. They ask questions that don’t lead anywhere useful. They sit with me in the middle of the night and refuse to leave.

The things I wish I loved are more polite.

They look impressive from far away. People nod approvingly when you say their names.

But they do not speak to me.

So I tried to build a life out of them anyway.

Stacking them carefully, like empty boxes, hoping the structure would feel like a home if I arranged it neatly enough.

It didn’t.

Instead, there was this dull, quiet hunger. It aches, and it lingers in the background of my everyday. A sense that I was slightly out of place inside my own life, like wearing someone else’s coat that almost fits but never quite settles on the shoulders.

And maybe the misery was simply the absence of the small, strange things that used to keep me company.

The soft chaos of loving something for no good reason.

Maybe nothing is wrong with the world.

Maybe I just stopped answering the door when the things I loved came looking for me.

I would push myself out of my numb, tiny hole and see if I surprise myself by having some fun.

Sometimes I wonder if I am living half-alive. Not dead, not fully here either. Just moving through the days like someone walking underwater, every step slower than it should be.

I keep thinking maybe the feeling will lift if I just step outside of it. If I go somewhere and do something, let the world bump into me a little. Maybe I will laugh unexpectedly. Maybe something small will catch my attention and pull me back into myself again.

Or maybe nothing will happen.

I don’t know which possibility is more exhausting.

It is strange to be this tired without having done anything that should make a person tired. This fatigue lingers in my bones, in my mind, in the quiet moments between my thoughts.

Still, there is a small, stubborn part of me that wants to try. I am not exactly hopeful, but the idea of staying here forever—in this dim, numb little corner of mine—feels heavier than the effort of stepping out of it.

So maybe I will go.

Maybe I will move.

Maybe I will surprise myself.

And I am going to go out and do something.

Because this isn’t my room anymore.

It has quietly turned into a prison.

The walls are the same, the window is the same, the air hasn’t changed. But something about the way I sit inside it has hardened. The hours gather here like dust. My thoughts circle the same tired corners. Even silence has started to feel heavy.

And the worst part is that no one locked the door.

It is I.

The habits, the hesitation, the strange comfort of staying still even when stillness begins to suffocate. I built the bars slowly, without noticing. One quiet day at a time.

But a prison only works if you keep agreeing to stay.

So I will stand up. I will open the door that was never actually closed. I will step outside and let the world feel unfamiliar again—the cold air, the noise, the small unpredictable things that happen when you are not hiding.

Maybe nothing remarkable will happen.

But at least the sky will be bigger than these four walls.

At least the day will not end in the exact same place it began.

And maybe that is how a prison stops being a prison.

You leave.

Boredom lives in time. No, it is time. It is sticky, it is thick, it drags my thoughts into corners and folds them into shapes that make no sense. I try to think—no, I need to think—but the thoughts are knives, or maybe they’re smoke, maybe they dissolve before I even see them. Everything I imagine is wrong, broken, like I’ve lost the key to the lock I’ve always carried.

I look at the sky. I look. I look. It’s big. It’s endless. And I am less than a dot. I could disappear. I could fold into myself and vanish, and it wouldn’t matter. No one would notice. No one sees the quiet falling-apart. They are all moving, moving, moving, and I am here, still, stuck, the inside of my skull shaking, cracking, spilling fragments no one will ever clean up.

I reach for things—words, hands, dreams, hope—but they are not there. There is only friction. Only grit. My mind is a storm that makes no sound, a hurricane of everything and nothing, circling, twisting, bending reality until it snaps. And I am inside it. I am inside it, and there is no exit, no door, no light, no rescue.

I bite, I scream, I scratch, I fall, I run in place. The clock ticks, but it does not exist. My pulse pounds, but it is not mine. I am unraveling. I am splitting. I am scattering. And yet—somehow—I am still breathing.

And I hate it here but I love it here. I'm grateful I'm still alive. I suppose I love life despite its attempt to crush me.

I am afraid of how carefully I move through the world. How rehearsed I am. How much of me is instinct, and how much is fear pretending to be politeness? Sometimes I feel like a collection of responses rather than a person. Like if no one is watching, I might disappear.

There is a quiet shame in not knowing how to belong. I wear different versions of myself depending on the room, and none of them feel like home. I draw invisible lines around my heart because I don’t know how to let anyone cross without panicking—without doing too much.

I am clumsy and clunky, often too loud.
I could be a better friend, a better partner, a better sibling, a better daughter.
I am full of love in all my messiness, through all the abrasiveness, too.
I don’t know—I just like looking at the scenes around me.
I like petting cats on the street and watching cars pass by.
My heart is big in my chest, and sometimes I have to cradle it and love it, even when I’m shying away.

Some days, I wake up already exhausted by the effort of existing. I think this is the day I won’t make it. And then I do. I always do. I don’t know when survival became muscle memory, but here I am, breathing through it again.

Sometimes I wrap my arms around myself.
I watch a fan spin.
I stay very still.
I guess I’ll just love myself until I mean it.

I am learning that staying is its own kind of bravery. The sun keeps showing up for me even when I forget to show up for myself. Time keeps moving, gently, without asking if I’m ready. And somehow, I keep becoming me, over and over again.

I am trying to forgive myself for being human. For having hands that shake, for needing reassurance, for wanting too much and saying too little. I am trying to hate myself less, not all at once, just enough to keep going.

Inside me, I am building someone who understands. Someone who doesn’t flinch at my softness. Someone who knows that even when I feel unlovable, I am still worthy of being held.

I don’t need everything to be okay. I just need moments—small, warm ones. People to love while I’m here. Proof that tenderness still counts for something.

If all I ever do is make people feel a little less alone, then maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s the point. This quiet life, with its tiny joys and ordinary miracles, already feels enormous to me.

I rarely knock on doors. I always assume I am too much or not enough. I wait and wait and tell myself it’s safer this way. But sometimes I wish someone would knock on mine without being asked.

I say I want to go home, but what I mean is I want to feel settled inside myself. I want to rest without guilt. I want to return to a place that never really existed, but still aches like it did.

I carry old sadness carefully, like glass. Things I felt when I was twelve still live in my chest. And yet—when I see stars through my window, or fold warm laundry, I am reminded that wonder survives me. That love keeps finding me in ordinary disguises.

There is so much love in me. It spills everywhere. I just don’t know how to ask for it back. I don’t know how to say, please choose me, without my voice breaking.

I am afraid this longing will outlive me. I joke about it, hide it, pretend I’m fine. But it hums constantly beneath my days. I don’t know where to put it all.

Still, tonight, I am okay. Things are ending. Things are beginning. I am learning to let both happen at once. How strange, how beautiful, to realize I am the love of my own life.

I want to learn languages, make art, and and fill rooms with warmth. I want a soft corner in a quiet home. I want music and color and time.

But more than anything, I want to love and be loved.
I want to move through this world gently, honestly.
Everything I do comes from love—
and a little chaos, too.

Some days I wake up already missing you, and that’s the confusing part. Nothing is actually wrong. Nothing is broken. And yet there’s this quiet feeling that my body expected you to be closer. Like I reached for something familiar without thinking, and only noticed once it wasn’t there. I hate that it makes me smile. I hate that I don’t hate it.

I like you. It’s inconvenient. slightly embarrassing. In a way that makes me pause and think, oh—so this is happening. I like how different we are. I like how you annoy me and somehow still make my day better. You’re irritating. Please don’t go anywhere. Stay where I can see you. Stay long enough for me to pretend I don’t care.

You think you’re funny, which is rude, because you actually are. You think you’re cool, which is worse, because you don’t even try. I love your smile. I love it when I’m the reason it shows up. It does something to me that I pretend not to notice, even though I always do. I notice everything. Especially you.

I want you in the boring parts of my day. The random thoughts. The pointless updates. The moments that feel too small to mention until they suddenly aren’t. I want to be someone you think of without effort. Someone who slips into your day naturally, the way your habits do

I reply fast because I want to. If it’s you and my phone is already in my hand, why wouldn’t I? I don’t believe in pretending not to care when I clearly do. And yes, I like you. I know that already, even if I keep acting like I don’t.

I also know this probably doesn’t go anywhere neat. Maybe I won’t be yours. Maybe you won’t be mine. Maybe this never turns into something with clear lines and easy endings. But right now, this exists. This feeling exists. And it’s such a beautiful feeling.

The first weeks were unkind. But it was just the honesty of life. The kind of honesty that strips you bare and asks, are you sure? I was not. I counted days like losses. I learned how heavy distance could be. I wondered if chasing a dream was just a romantic way of running away. If it was even worth it.

Then life did that thing it always does when you stop begging it for answers.

It softened.

It softened gently, like a room warming up after a long winter. Streets began to recognize my footsteps. Strangers turned into anchors. Laughter returned without announcing itself. I realized I hadn’t left home — I had expanded it. I hadn’t lost my people — I was collecting them in new forms.

Now I wake up tired,cold but alive. The good kind of tired. The kind that means you’re becoming someone. I move through my days like I’m learning a rhythm I didn’t grow up with, but somehow always knew. People tell me I’m doing well, and for once I don’t flinch at the compliment. I’m still figuring out whether I need rest or discipline, healing or hunger — but I’m learning that confusion is not failure. It’s evidence of motion.

My room is always a mess, a physical manifestation of a mind that wants too much at once. There is so much I want to do, so much I haven’t done yet. My thoughts run ahead of my mouth. My breath never quite catches up. But I’ve stopped apologizing for the chaos. Creation is rarely tidy.

Somewhere between breathing and living, I misplaced the version of myself that cried almost every day, four months ago. I was so impatient with her, but she was still learning how to hold the world — what else could she have done? I haven’t lost softness. I’ve gained containment. I bend now instead of breaking.

Leaving home did not ruin me.

It revealed a part of me I didn't know existed.

What once felt like regret now feels like alignment. I am not ahead of time, and I am not behind. I am exactly where life can reach me. This is not the end of becoming — it’s the beginning of inhabiting.

And God… life is so unbearably, unexpectedly beautiful.

And yet—
there are nights I still bargain with God.
Asking what I must give up,
what would be enough
for Him to send you toward me.

I repeat the things you said
until they feel truer than my own thoughts.

To love is to suffer.
But to resist love is also to suffer.
So I love, knowing it will hurt.
And I try not to love, knowing that it will hurt too.

To love is to suffer.
To not love is to suffer.
There is no clean choice.
Only different kinds of pain.

They say happiness is love.
But love is suffering,
and suffering makes one unhappy,
so happiness feels like something
we keep misdefining
so we don’t have to stop wanting it.

How does the heart forget
one who already lives in the soul?

I don’t only want you.
I want you to want me too.
I accept that you don’t—
but acceptance doesn’t erase desire.

Isn’t this madness—
to love something
incapable of loving you back,
and still wake up hoping
that today might be different?

I reach for you.
You do not move.

I love you.
Nothing changes

I am tired of waiting,
but not tired of wanting.

I am homesick
for arms that have never held me.

I can turn you into poetry,
into sense, into something survivable—
but I cannot make you love me.

Once a month, I go a little crazy. I cry over things I can’t name, laugh at nothing, and stare into the dark until my reflection feels like a stranger. But somehow, when the madness fades, I find myself breathing softer, seeing the world a little bit clearer. Maybe that’s what “turning holy” means—not sainthood, but survival. A kind of quiet faith in the beauty that hides beneath the pain.

So yes, I despair. I ache. I spiral. But when the sun rises, I make hot chocolate again. I play the same song. I open the blinds. And I let the sunlight remind me that even broken things can glow when the light hits them just right.

Overall, I think my life is beautiful because, despite everything, I am still here, and that alone makes life worth living again.

i saw you once,
and forgot how to breathe.
my words vanished,
my chest ached,
and i only existed when you weren’t there.

you don’t even know me,
but somehow my pulse already does.
it races when you walk past,
slows when you don’t.

i’ve already given you
all the pieces of me
i didn’t know i had.
i’m trying to be quiet,
but quiet isn’t enough.

does your chest ache too,
or is it just mine?

if falling’s all i can do,
please—
be so kind,
and fall too.

I ask myself, again and again: is this all there is? The world stretches out, vast and endless, but no matter where I step, I never seem to fit. The mold they built for me may not have been made for my shape. They want me to fold myself into their corners, but every time I try, I tear at the seams. Maybe I’ll never get that thing. Maybe I’ll never fit their picture of success. Maybe all I can do is trust that if I choose myself—if I believe, even blindly—things will find their way, even when skies stay gray.

Someday, I want to be brave enough to face the things that frighten me: to stand at the edge of my fear and not turn away, to meet the small terrors steering my life and tell them they don’t have the map anymore. A quiet courage that rearranges everything inside me.

Some nights, the spiral comes faster. I sip from the cup, numbing myself, only to feel like prey in a pit of snakes. I’m stuck in a twilight zone—caught between the person I am and the person I keep promising myself I’ll become. I say I won’t repeat it, that I won’t let myself fall into the same cycle. And yet, I do. Hoping—foolishly—that maybe this time will be different, that maybe the outcome will shift, that maybe there’s more to life than the shadows I’m walking through.

Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a dream, slipping from one version of reality to the next. Everything looks solid, but when I reach out, it dissolves in my hands. Streets blur into one another, faces fade before I can hold onto them, and everywhere I go, the same emptiness follows. Nothing feels steady. Nothing feels like home.

Trapped between two worlds, neither of them home. Everywhere I go, the same hollow echo. Doors open, and I’m tempted to roll the dice, to risk everything on the chance that the other side is better. But what if the price is too high? What if I gamble away more than I can afford to lose? And yet… I still step forward. I still slip back. I still whisper to myself that next time will be the one.

The truth is relentless: everywhere I stand, nothing feels like home. No walls embrace me, no rooms recognize me. Even when I scream, even when I fight to be heard, even when I swear I’ll make them see me—underneath it all, I’m still searching for the place where I can finally exhale. Where I can stop running from the emptiness. Where I can just belong.

so many questions without answers,

so many doors I never learned to open.

I made my hair, bought a new shirt,

slipped into shoes too heavy for the ground.

I signed an offer, found an apartment

with walls that echo louder than laughter.

There is no turning back now—

time refuses to slow down.

For the first time, I am truly on my own.

Childhood ends without ceremony.

I strip the shelves of their books,

fold the fragments of who I was

into bags beside a blender—

as if closure could be sealed in plastic

But I cannot rewind.

The clock does not bend to longing.

Control slips through my fingers

like water I can’t hold,

like sand scattering in the wind.

So I stand at the threshold,

eyes fixed on a door I cannot see through.

The floor tilts like a roller coaster—

and the only way forward

is into the unknown.

And then, with just a turn of the head, I saw you.

It was simple. Just a breath caught quietly in my chest, a small awareness blooming where it hadn’t been before. Your gaze found mine and lingered—steady, questioning, as though it carried the faintest whisper: have we met? And in that moment, the room seemed to soften, the noise retreating to the edges.

Your silhouette moved closer, unhurried, until you were there. Words came easily, back and forth, threaded with lightness, like they had been waiting in the air for us to speak them aloud. The conversation existed, effortless, unassuming. Comfort made into syllables, slipping in like a cat curling softly at your feet.

And that was all it was—comfort. A quiet undoing of the tension I hadn’t even realized I was holding. The simple relief of belonging, if only for a moment.

The night carried itself forward on glances that lingered too long, on laughter that stayed with me even after it ended. And when I finally stepped out into the street, I carried something soft with me—an unnamed warmth, faint but undeniable. My cheeks still burned with the gentle imprint of a night that had shifted, almost imperceptibly, into something else.

Sleep was reluctant. At 12 AM, I lay restless, thoughts circling themselves in loose, lazy spirals. Quiet questions kept returning: Did you feel it too? Was it only me?

Then—a sound. The light chime of a notification. Your name lit up my screen. My chest tightened, but softly, in that way it does when joy arrives without warning. I curled into the duvet, letting the glow of the moment wrap itself around me. A smile rose unbidden, warm and unhurried, spreading until it reached even the spaces silence had left untouched.

The message itself was simple. So simple, yet it spoke volumes. I read it again and again, as though repetition might let me hold onto its warmth a little longer. And somehow, it worked. The words stayed. They settled into the quiet of the room, tucked themselves into the folds of my blanket, and rested there beside me.

For a while, I just let them. Let the glow of your name linger on the screen; let my heart hum with that small, certain joy. Softly. Steadily. Where no one else could see it.

And in that stillness, I wished—gently—that you were there. Simply there. That if I turned, I would find your eyes waiting, calm and sure, and your smile—the one that had made the night feel lighter—settling into the darkness beside me.

For what felt like the hundredth time, something shifted—but this time there was something new.

That summer became our little secret, a kind of undercover season where we tried to figure out what we were. But part of me wondered—should we leave this love up in the stars, safe in the constellations, before it breaks us? Would it be smarter to forget the last two months, to erase the nights we spent together, laughing it off and lying to our friends, pretending nothing was there? Maybe it was best if we never even gave it the chance to become something real.

But the truth was, I was getting used to you. It felt too good to be true. Maybe what we had wouldn’t be so dangerous if there wasn’t so much to lose. Maybe our summer undercover was only meant to be temporary, nothing more.

Still, a part of me didn’t want to leave it behind. I didn’t want to let this love vanish into constellations. My heart felt safe with you—I knew you wouldn’t break it. And no matter how much I told myself otherwise, I knew I could never forget those last two months or the way they felt.

Our friends already saw it; our laughter gave it away. It was the worst-kept secret. We tried to pretend, but deep down we both knew the truth: we couldn’t leave this love alone.

But what was that something else? Was it love, or only the ghost of it—something fragile, a secret not yet spoken into the air? Should it remain unnamed, hidden, and preserved in the safety of not being touched? Or should it be confessed, let loose into the world with all the risk of ruin that follows?

Should we leave this love alone? Keep it in the stars, a story of what could have been?

And that night—for me—was exactly that. A memory without spectacle, but rare all the same. A night that asked for nothing, yet gave me more than I knew to expect. A night that left me quietly wondering if you knew—that I was enchanted by you.

You are a rumor I’ve built into a cathedral.
a stranger I’ve dressed in my favorite dreams.
Too soon, too much—
yet the tide keeps dragging me deeper.

I tell myself: don’t fall.
But I’m already holding my breath,
waiting for your hand on my door,
for a silence that feels like confession.

What a ridiculous gamble
to wager my quiet heart
on a face I’ve only traced in imagination.
Still, isn’t drowning more alive than standing safe on shore?

Call me foolish, call me reckless
but I’ll bend until I break,
let the water close over my head.
You, a risk I’ll cradle like a secret,
my favorite mistake
waiting to happen.

I also don’t remember what I was doing the day we met, but I remember how the air changed the moment you entered it. I remember the silence between your sentences, the way the awareness of your existence filled the gaps I didn’t even know I had. And maybe that’s why it hurts now—you’ve gone silent, and all I hear are the echoes.

You see, I wasn’t built for almosts. I don’t know how to love halfway. I was designed for depth, for madness, for the kind of love that burns cities and bends time. And when I looked at you… when I chose you… It wasn’t casual. It wasn’t temporary. And it wasn’t random either. Because there is no one else for me. There never has been.

You are the first note of a song I never stopped humming. The only face that ever made sense in a crowded room. And no matter how crowded, I always found you. I learned your patterns the way children learn lullabies—slowly, softly, like safety. I could feel you enter a room without lifting my head. It was something my soul was familiar with. Something I thought would never leave.

But what do you do when the person you were made for wasn’t made for you?

So I did the next right thing: I waited. That’s what I did. Waited like the moon waits for the tide. Like the sky waits for the sun to return. I waited in rooms where your name was too heavy to say aloud. I waited through messages unsent, through nights where silence sat beside me like a ghost that looked like you.

You left, but I stayed.

Crowded by your absence. Smothered by the weight of everything, we never got to be.

It was meant to be. God, I promise it was meant to be. Every sign pointed to you. Every version of the future had your name penciled into the lines. But “meant to be” doesn’t always mean “meant to last.”

You were a lesson carved into bone. A soft war I entered willingly. Loving you was like going to battle unarmed—and I never came back the same. Parts of me are still in that field. Parts of me still flinch at the thought of your name, even now.

But here’s what I refuse to accept—and I hope you hear this loud and clear—you don’t get to leave and come back like you didn’t burn the place down. You don’t get to be absent for so long and then act surprised that the door doesn’t open the same way anymore. Do not ask how I’ve been when you were the reason I had to learn how to breathe again.

So don’t be gone too long. Or do.
But don’t come back looking for me; I’ve grown in the mess you left behind. I’m not by the door; I’m no longer expecting you.

Details die with time. The sound of your laugh doesn’t echo in my walls the way it used to. The stories have changed. The version of me you left behind doesn’t live here anymore. She waited. She prayed. She broke in places she didn’t know could break. But she’s not yours anymore.

The girl who would’ve handed you the world now guards her peace like it’s all she has. And maybe that’s what this was meant to teach me—not how to keep you, but how to keep myself, after you left.

And yet—I’ll admit this—I still begin and end with you. That’s the most brutal part. I’ve stopped romanticizing it, but I haven’t stopped feeling it. Because even if I never see you again, even if your name never lights up my screen again, there’s still a corner of me that flickers when someone asks if I’ve ever been in love.

Yes.
Once.
With someone who wasn’t made to stay.
With you.

After all, if you really loved something, wouldn’t a piece of it always linger?

Lately, it feels like the world is obsessed with tearing itself apart. Everyone is so sure they’re right, so desperate to be on the “winning” side of something, that we’ve completely forgotten what we’re even fighting for. Sometimes I’m just scrolling through the news and… freeze. Like, what are we even doing? Did we all collectively agree that chaos is the newest trend and someone just forgot to CC the rest of us?

Every headline is the same, every damn day: wars, bombings, leaders pointing fingers like overgrown toddlers (pointless trade wars), and the usual speeches about “justice,” “freedom” or “peace.” Honestly, if I hear one more politician say “for a better future” with that fake serious face, I might scream into a pillow. It might just be my 13th reason why, honestly.

Do they even remember why they started fighting in the first place? Or is this just noise now? Like everyone’s on autopilot, press button, start war, waste lives, shrug. What’s the actual point? What do they even hope to gain? Bragging rights? A shiny new flag? A trophy that says, “Congrats, you ruined everything”?

And oh, the hypocrisy. We’re all a bit hypocritical, fine, we’re human, but dayummm, some people are basically professionals at it. Preachers talk about peace and forgiveness, then bless wars because apparently, God has a favorite army now. Leaders chant “hope” and “the future,” but look closer and it’s just a giant chessboard, except the pawns are actual people, like you and me, being shuffled around until we’re useless.

And us regular people? We get sold this dream: “Be bold! Dream big! Change the world!” but only if it’s the right kind of dream. A safe dream. God forbid you dare to actually be the ambitious, curious, outspoken person they hyped you up to be, suddenly it’s, “Afa, relax o.” Excuse me?? You gave me the pep talk! Why inspire me if you’re just gonna panic when I actually do the thing?

You know it’s absolutely ridiculous. And some days, I honestly just want to give up and join the “meh, nothing matters” squad. It’d be easier to scroll past everything, laugh at people still trying, and say, “Well, that’s just how the world works.” But I can’t. And trust me, I’ve tried. There’s this stubborn, irritating part of me that refuses to believe we’re completely broken. That humanity is just… done.

I keep imagining this place, not a real place obvi, but a way things could be. A world where survival doesn’t mean crushing someone else. Where kindness isn’t treated like some secret suspicious move. Where you can help someone without them squinting at you like, “So… what do you really want from me?” Where hope isn’t something you have to whisper because people will roll their eyes and call you childish. Just a place where being human–in all our messy, imperfect glory–is enough.

And yeah, I know it sounds unrealistic. Borderline delusional, even. But that’s what I stand for. Not governments. Not borders. Not slogans that trend for a week and vanish. I stand for people. For the version of us that hasn’t been chewed up by greed or fear yet. For the dreamers, the ones still building, creating, teaching, helping, or just smiling at strangers because maybe, just maybe, it makes someone’s day a little lighter.

People love to roll their eyes at that. “The world doesn’t work like that.” Maybe not. But who exactly decided the world has to stay this way? Every bit of progress we have now, the good stuff, the freedoms, the fact that we can even rant about this online without getting arrested in most places, came from someone who refused to accept “the way things are.” Someone stubborn enough to be called naive, and brave enough to keep going anyway.

And I think there are more of us than people realize. We’re everywhere. You probably know a few, you might even be one. We’re in cities, villages, classrooms, late-night coffee shops, running on caffeine and hope. We’re the ones quietly holding things together in ways that never make the news. The small acts. The little kindnesses. The belief, however fragile, that tomorrow can be better than today.

Maybe history won’t remember us. Maybe no one will write our names in books or build statues for us (which is fine, because statues are creepy anyway). But if the future ends up even a little better than this mess, it’ll be because of us. Because we didn’t quit. Because we kept trying when everyone else decided it was pointless.

And honestly? That’s enough for me. If all I ever do is hold one tiny piece of this world together, if the only difference I make is one person feeling less alone, or one small thing working better than it did before, I can live with that. Because I’d rather be the person who believed we were worth saving, and acted like it, than someone who gave up because it was easier.

God forgive me and help me, because I am going to build something that outlives me.

So yeah. Call me naive. I’ll take it. Because at least when everything’s falling apart, I can look myself in the mirror and say, “Well… at least you tried.”

Because if you stand for nothing, then what will you fall for?

Not the version of him the world saw. Not the polished, distant thing wrapped in good intentions. No, I wanted the boy behind the silences. The one who looked at me like he was starving, but never took a bite. The one who tapped his foot when he was nervous, who looked away when he laughed too hard. The one whose voice dropped an octave when he said my name. The one who held my gaze like it meant something, only to let it go like it didn’t.

He never touched me. But everything he did felt like touching. Every laugh that lingered too long, every sideways glance, every time he said my name like it was his favorite flavor. I lived for those moments. I fed off them—like oxygen. I’d replay his voice in my head at night, stringing together our conversations like pearls—delicate, dangerous, precious. He made me feel like the world slowed down when he looked at me. And maybe it did. Or maybe I just wanted it to.

I could never sit still around him. Not really. My skin would buzz like it was waiting for something—his hand, his words, his decision. Every time he texted me, my chest lit up like a fuse had been set off. I would hover over the screen like his words might scorch me. And they did, sometimes. In the way he said “my girl,” it was like it didn’t mean anything. In the way he said “take care,” it was like he wasn’t the thing I needed protection from.

You say you're no good. But you were so good for me.

Do you know what it’s like to want someone who’s always almost there? Someone who lets you drown slowly, maybe? Someone who gives just enough to keep you alive but never enough to fill you?

I burned for him. Quietly. Violently.

I wanted to tell him—I wanted to grab his face and make him see me. Not the version I showed the world, not the careful, clever girl I packaged myself into. But the one who ached at the sound of his name. The one who watched his hands and wondered what it might feel like if he just reached back. I wanted to press myself against the edge of him and see if he would finally fall in.

But I didn’t. Because I don’t ask. I hint. I linger. I leave doors cracked, never flung open. I beg without speaking. And he heard me. I know he did.

He just never walked through.

And that’s the part that ruins me.

Because he wasn’t oblivious. He was careful. Too careful. He was soft and sweet and sacred in the ways that hurt the most. And it would’ve been easier if he had rejected me outright. If he had laughed or pulled away or said “no.” But instead, he kept me there. Right there. In his orbit. In that sacred middle place between nothing and everything.

He never held me, but somehow, I still felt him everywhere. Every game we played, every stupid inside joke, every time he called me after class—I could feel him getting under my skin. We never even took a picture together. Two years, and nothing to show for it but memory and madness. No proof, except the ache.

And maybe I loved him.
No. I did.
I loved him in a way I can’t even explain to myself. In a way that felt ancient and primal and holy all at once. I loved him like worship. Like he was the altar, and I kept offering pieces of myself just to be near his fire.

And he never asked for them.
That’s what made it worse.

I would’ve given him everything.
My time. My secrets. My heart. My name.

I would’ve let him ruin me and called it a blessing.
I would’ve let him write his name in my silence, and I’d carry it like a vow.

But he didn’t ask.
And I didn’t say.
And that ended it.

Not heartbreak.
Not tragedy.
Just a girl who burned quietly while the boy she wanted watched her glow and said, “You’re beautiful,” but never stepped into the fire.

Nothing aches like almost