people I thought would stay,

but they never do.

Maybe I’m easily forgettable,

unlikable once you really know me.

But do I ever cross their minds?

Do they ever think of me,

and wish we were still something?

They never know the weight of being the only one still holding on.

But I want to know why.

Was I that easy to walk away from?

Was I too much?

or not enough?

Why did they never look back,

not even when they said I was loved?

I keep searching for the moment

I stopped seeing the love in their eyes.

the second I said something

that maybe ruined everything.

Why is it that I’m always

so easily forgotten?

I refuse to accept it.

It eats at me,

how easily I’m erased.

How forgettable I must be,

if I’m not even worth staying for.

I thought their leaving would take my soul and leave me with an empty body.

I thought I wouldn’t survive in the place they left behind for me.

I was already grieving before they even left.

I was grieving for what we had

and what would remain in the aftermath.

I could still hear our laughter sometimes,

see them in places where we once mingled.

I would walk past a place we once stood,

and time would pause,

we would still be there, frozen in the moment,

though it held no one.

I would see us in spaces we once occupied,

as if time had refused to move forward.

The spaces they once occupied became filled with faces that are unaware of what we shared,

of the laughter that once echoed through the corridors and the spaces we filled with life.

It felt as though my bones could no longer move without them,

and I had to grow into an unfamiliar normalcy in their absence .

But I learned how to live,

I learned how to be without them in my space.

And yet, I want it anyway.

It doesn’t matter how it ends as long as it happens.

I long for a fleeting love, for a love that changes my life before a permanent one arrives.

I’ll let him love me anyway, despite knowing we’ll probably not last.

Now, what does that say about me?

To want to do that to another,

to be willing to put both our hearts in that situation, despite knowing we might not last?

To look him in the eye, and say the words “I’ll always love you” without hesitation, because I’ll be speaking for the version of me that exists in that moment.

I’ll make promises that I fear won’t be the whole truth, even while my heart screams “you don’t know know that”

So yes, I’ll risk it If it means experiencing a love that is all-consuming.

I’ll surrender myself to something that might inevitably break me.

I’ll love despite knowing it might end, and I’ll do it recklessly.

For I’ve never needed love to be permanent, only something real enough to make it worth grieving.

And maybe.. I just need to fall first.

Her face has become a shell of the person she once was and she gazes at me in the mirror with scrutiny.

I look in the mirror and my hands ache to peel the skin off my face.

How can anyone love this face I’m wearing, when it doesn't even feel like my own?

“I don't know how to make myself prettier,” I whisper, as tears stream down my face and my heart twists in anguish.

The image I see in the mirror and the one everyone else sees is a foreign person.

Photo from Pinterest

I don't know when the line between

admiration and comparison blurred.

I believed I only wished I were like others. I thought I was merely noticing beauty.

But, sometimes, I look at other girls and feel something twist inside me.

If I felt half as pretty as they are, then it wouldn’t hurt so much.

They've never had to dread facing cameras or pick apart every tiny flaw on their face.

They've never had to be scared someone will see them the way they see themselves.

They don't know how it feels to be scared someone is going to see you the way you see yourself when they stare a little longer.

They don't see the way your mouth widens a little every time someone calls you pretty.

It feels good, even if only for a moment, because in those few seconds, I believe I’m pretty too.

I recognize this as longing, even when I don't want it to exist.

It isn’t envy so much as longing for the ease with which they carry themselves.

It’s so draining to examine one's appearance with disregard.

I push myself so hard,

to catch a glimpse of what people see in me, to feel like that person,

but I don't.

Will it ever end?

Everyone seems to admire me,

but what’s the point of being pretty when you don’t feel like you are?

I don’t know how to be the person everyone sees.

This is very personal to me. I actually wanted to post it when I wrote it a few months ago, but I didn’t feel ready. Then I started working on myself and began feeling better. Since it’s been a few months, and that was the last time I felt that way, I wasn’t sure whether to post it or not.

But I think it’s important to. Even if I don’t feel the same way today, I know someone else might.

I don’t know if I was to blame, but I do know that no one should have to go through the kind of pain I went through. It slithered through me, and I learned how to smile with the lights drained out of my eyes.

A fifteen-year-old, imprinted with scars she didn’t know how to hold.

Scarred because she didn’t know the world could sink its claws into her.

What hurt most was that I never deserved it, never tried to cage anyone with it.

Even now, my heart feels fractured when I think about it. My breath hitches, and my heart struggles to contain the memories. Every time my heart finds its rhythm again, the shadows of my past resurface.

Something so insignificant, so cruel, arbitrary, crumbled my entire world.

Someone who had no idea how my heart beats faster in loud places.

How my hands feel.

How my thoughts arrange themselves.

They just woke up, decided to lift me off my feet, and threw me down a deep hole, leaving me bruised. They never stayed to find out where the remnants of my bones landed after tossing them. Blamed and slandered for the rumors they spread, no one cared about what the truth was, what really happened.

They just wanted a topic.

And I became one.

They say people know you for what you do, but what if my only fault was not knowing?

I look at the sky and mourn the world that should’ve held my hand and grieved with me. I mourn the tenderness I was never met with. I’ve now learned to grieve with my frayed heart, because no one else will.

I tried really hard to be tough, to be neutral about it. But beneath my facade ran an undercurrent of grief, threatening to break me apart.

I clutched my hands, pretending to see when I wasn’t really looking, so that people couldn’t see how it chipped away at me. The bathroom stalls remember me, know how I stifled my cries with my hands, and they cried alongside me in the silence.

I know they didn’t deserve my tears; weren’t worthy of them, but I’ve learned to be softer with myself.

How can one move on when the world seems to be on one's back and refuses to let one's scars heal?

And yet… I carry these wounds as a reminder that I survived. Sometimes I’m glad the darkness consumed me, because it shaped who I am; other times, I loathe the part that should never have touched me. I was undeserving of that blow.

The world has shown me enough to know: I must carry my grief, tend to it alone. It has shown me how lies can shatter a person’s soul,

and I refuse to let that be my ending.

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It spins around,

telling me I’m perfect,

and then I’m not.

I’m pretty,

and then I’m not.

I stand straighter, head held up,

and then my neck aches

from looking in every direction,

searching for a mirror to tell me I’m okay.

My lips are glossed.

No spots on my face.

No one is prettier than me.

I’m smart. I speak well.

If I don’t talk too much,

it will be fine.

But nothing ever is.

I look in the mirror

and all I see is a girl with eyes that wander everywhere

but the person staring back at her.

I walk into a room full of people

and wonder if anyone sees a pretty girl,

if I’m walking the right way,

if I look okay.

My head screams at me to run,

but I want to stay.

I want to talk to people.

I love talking.

I just… don’t talk much.

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Pinterest

Do you think of me when you lay down

In the darkness?

Do you think of me as I think of you?

Do you hear the echoes of us

The remnants of our past?

Do you still hear our laughter in the back of your head?

The sound of us singing on the phone,

echoing within the walls?

Did any of what we had stay with you?

“You can’t repeat the past.”

— The Great Gatsby

I think about it all the time

Where we would be if I had done things differently,

The words I never got to say when it mattered.

What if I had looked at you for a second longer,

Let you hear how my heart beat so loudly when you were near.

What if when you looked at me with those eyes, I bared my soul,

shown you who it really belonged to.

My mind is to be blamed,

my heart already knew what it wanted.

It only ever wanted you.

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I was glad I found someone,

The one who loved me.

He brought me flowers on our first date,

And looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered.

Like I was finally worthy of being loved.

His eyes screamed, love love love-

Nothing but love,

Nothing but beautiful,

And for a moment, I believed I was love,

beautiful,

Anything but me.

I never knew love could be seen,

Never thought it would happen to me,

Until that moment.

And just as I drew closer,

Something shifted beside me, and my eyes flew open.

It shattered me.

To find that it was only a dream,

Far and gone.

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People have often overlooked me so much that my mind prepares for distance. I assume the interest will fade. I anticipate and brace myself for the impact because somewhere deep within me, I know it wouldn’t stay. I doubt when someone stays because it’s unusual, and perhaps it’s better to have doubts than to have vain expectations, even though it stings each time.

And my heart continues to lurch from my chest in desperation because it thinks maybe this time, we’ll be accepted.

Maybe this time, we’ll be worthy.

My flaws will not be flaws.

There’s always that fear of not being enough, that there are other people who are better than me.

Others who are more important,

more interesting,

more confident.

Someone whose everything feels easier to love,

someone who isn’t me.

Am I harder to love, or do I just feel wrong? Or maybe, it’s how I perceive myself, not the reality I drown myself in.

I wonder which part of me is not enough. What parts of me are difficult to love? Is it the way I think? Or is it the way my heart loves too deeply it consumes itself? Perhaps it has to do with my entire being.

If my perfections can’t be talked about, then I would like to know what my imperfections are.

I know that I’m replaceable.

My mind’s accepted that verdict, but my heart refuses to accept it. It still feels the burn without fail because there’s always that ounce of hope that refuses to fade into the disappointments. It beats,

aches for something salvaging,

something to hold onto.

There’s always something to think of.

Do my flaws make me harder to love?

Do I make myself harder to love?

Often, when I let someone in, they seem to take a step back, and I’m left with questions:

Am I someone you like until you get a glimpse of my soul and turn away?

Why can’t I be loved imperfectly when even people with visible flaws are often loved?

Do my flaws outweigh all my perfections so much that they don’t deserve to coexist?

I see others being chosen despite their flaws, and I see no comparison between them and me. I want to be picked with my flaws on display, for someone to decide to stay because of them, and because they deserve to feel loved too.

Perhaps what I want is not just to be loved but to be chosen, so I finally have the evidence that I’m worth staying for.

That I’m worthy of being picked when there are others who are better.

That the thought of not being good is just my perception, and that I deserve the love I receive.

That just because someone is flawless doesn’t mean they deserve love any more than the one with flaws.

Maybe I need the evidence so I can stop doubting anyone who dares to come close enough to me. So I can believe that the ones who stay long enough chose to stay because of my being, flawless or not.