She speaks in riddles,
laces truths with velvet lies,
paints herself in poise so practised
it gleams like armour polished daily.
But her eyesβ
her eyes are the only thing honest.
And they flicker,
like a candle near its end.
She hides.
Behind wit sharp enough to wound,
behind a smile too perfect
to be anything but a mask.
She hides,
because to be seen
is to be knownβ
and to be known
is to be shattered.
There is a hunger in her
that terrifies her more than hunger itself.
A longing so primal,
it claws at her ribcage
when the lights go out.
But she will not open the door.
She will not let the wild thing free.
Instead, she gulps for air
in rooms that feel like coffins.
Her chest,
a battlefield of silenced screams,
her breath,
a rope around her throat
that tightens every time
she whispers "I'm fine."
No one sees her fracture.
But she does.
When the world is turned away,
she allows a single crackβ
just oneβ
a silent tremble in the stillness.
Then she gathers herself back up,
wraps the costume tight again,
and smiles like sin.
She is tired. So tired.
Each day, a climb up the same cliff
with a fraying rope,
and hands that bleed from holding on.
Each day,
she wonders what it might feel like
to just let
go.
Would they miss her?
Would they feel the shift
in the air where she used to stand?
Or would she vanish
as quietly
as she lived?
She does not know.
And that not-knowing
is its own kind of death.
It comes in silken shadows,
not a scream, but a murmurβ
a whisper curling
at the nape of thought,
uninvited,
yet always welcomed.
That voiceβa fingertip,
dragged slow
along the spine of restraint,
unravelling logic
like thread between teeth.
It knows where the fire sleeps,
where want smoulders
in the gut of virtue,
where decency thins
like lace before flame.
That touch is a gasp,
held in the throat of midnight,
an ache shaped like a name
one dares not speak
in the light.
Oh, it is not love.
It is older than that.
It is the myth buried
beneath the altar,
the confession scrawled
on the back of a tongue
too afraid to be holy.
And yetβ
it returns.
It always returns.
For who can deny
the sweetness of poison
when it sings so soft,
so tender,
so true?
It wraps itself
in the silk of one's sins,
and smiles,
knowing
one'll beg
to drown again.
There's a hum in the room I can't match. A rhythm everyone else seems to know instinctivelyβthe right nod, the right laugh, the right pause before speaking. I enter conversations like a clumsy intruder, all elbows and jagged thoughts. My words always come out crooked, like I built them with trembling hands, and by the time I realise what I've said, it's too late. The air shifts. The moment sours. Someone politely glances away...
And then it beginsβthe descent...
The slow collapse beneath invisible waves, crashing quietly but thoroughly. An internal siren blaring: you ruined it again.
Anxiety floods in, filling the space behind my eyes, pressing into my chest like a second heartbeat. I smile, because it is the only armour I've been taught to wear. I laugh at myself before they can. I apologise for existing in the wrong frequency.
They pat me on the head, metaphoricallyβor sometimes literallyβand it's not affection, not really. It's pity dressed up in soft gestures and forced compliments.
"You're just unique..."
"You're doing fine..."
"You're trying your best..."
And maybe I am...
But their words are feather-light, and I am made of stone.
They cannot lift me.
They don't see the weight. They don't know how heavy it is to constantly assess your reflection in the mirror of every interaction, to dig through your own sentences and wonder which one did the damage. It's like living on a tightroap, blindfolded, while everyone else strolls on solid ground.
And still, the world expects you to be needed. Useful. Functional. Digestible. It's exhausting, trying to fit in the shape that never belonged to you, performing adequacy for an audience that claps politely but never invites you backstage.
Some days I wonder if it's worth itβto chase their standards, to bend into someone they might finally understand. I get tired of translating myself. Tired of pretending this isn't lonely. That this isn't suffocating.
Why can't I just be normal?
Why can't I just be wanted without having to earn it in apologies and over-explanations?
And underneath it all, the quiet, aching whisper:
What is wrong with me?
But the world offers no reply.
Only more noise.
More smiles that don't reach their eyes. More spaces where I do not fit.
So I sit in the silence after the crash, dripping with everything I couldn't say right.
I wear my skin like a costume,
ill-fitting, stitched with silenceβ
each thread a word I said too loud,
too soon,
too wrong.
They laugh, and I smile like I meant it.
I talk, and I watch it unravelβ
every syllable a slip,
every sentence
a spotlight on the things I shouldn't have said.
And then comes the flood.
The rush of why did I say that?
The throb of they must think I'm ridiculous.
The wave that pulls me under,
tides of shame
drowning me in the echo of my own voice.
Their kindness cuts the deepestβ
soft tones that pat my head,
eyes that say, we feel sorry for you,
though their mouths dress it up in "You're doing great."
"You're just different."
Little liesβ
like band-aids on a broken dam.
I feel the weight of their need
to fix me
shape me
break and rebuild me
into something palatable.
Something
normal. Wanted.
But I'm so tired
of sculpting myself into their silence.
So tired
of carrying the burden of better
when even my best
is met with a sigh.
Why can't I just be
enough
as I am?
Why does being me
feel like
a flaw to be managed
a glitch to be pitied
a shadow in the shape of a person?
What is wrong with me
that I can't seem to breathe
without breaking?
That I can't just be
what the world seems to want?
Just once,
I want to be seen
not through a lens of mercy
but with real eyes.
Not fixed,
not savedβ
just understood.
But until then,
I'll keep drowning
in the quiet between
what I am
and what they wish I'd be.
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