I Wish I Was Loved

fingertips

my fingertips barely touch the surface of the mirror, in what reflects my most vivid of dreams. to be loved, touched like I’m a secret that’s meant to be told, and a reflection that’s seen but never meant to be shown.

i imagine what it feels to be admired, to match an energy so surreal my dreams can’t even begin to create a scene so magical. so what is it? will i ever be loved, respected, praised, or celebrated?

my fingertips have calluses from wrists bruised with scars deeper than stains. calluses so thick I can’t feel what I want to, and I don’t know how to react. to myself, to the world, and to anything at all.

so I shout, and I scream. and no one hears anything. maybe one day, I’ll be able to finally feel something.

I miss you like

I miss you like the moon misses the waves of the shore, lingering to bring it closer to its halo.

But you miss me like a shooting star in the sky on the brightest night in the city.

I’ve missed you like a dwarf planet yearning to be pulled back in its sun’s orbit.

But you miss me like a summer breeze on the hottest day in July.

It’s not the same, and it may never be. It’s never enough, and I blame myself for it. I hate myself most for longing to be missed by you like winter’s first snowfall.

I wish I was loved by you like the way you loved your loved ones.

I wish I was loved by you like the way you loved your loved ones. And it's funny but I should’ve read the signs, we were never as close as I thought we were. I admired you. I looked up to you. and that's where it stopped. That's where I should've realized that everything would've never been reciprocated.

Fingertips were always barely touching the glass it peered though. And maybe just maybe, I was the object on the other side, surrounded by long panes of glass, unable to escape. Maybe I was meant to be observed by you, but never truly loved by you.

It’s been 8 months now and I haven’t heard a word from you. I hope you know I miss you. But it’s time I stop trying. No more waiting to hear your voice, for invites on nights where I get lonely, on days where it’s rainy & the sun won’t shine. I've had enough. and I hope everything I gave you was enough. Because maybe truly, I’m meant to be alone to be able to finally break down the glass.

I had assumed

My bad— I had assumed we were closer than I thought we were. nights holding hands as the cold air crisped our noses, tears running down my face, arms intertwined, and your jacket on my shoulders.

I’m sorry— I had assumed we were close. nights crying on the phone until the sun rose to remind us to go back to bed. nights on the bench crying until 3am because he dumped you for another athlete.

I fear— I’ve assumed we were close. days sitting on the grass unveiling our fears that we’ve never told anyone else. laughing until we told ourselves it’s not worth it to k-ll ourselves right now.

I didn’t know— we weren’t as close as you said we were. And I’m sorry, I didn’t catch myself sooner.

i keep crying

i keep crying at the littlest things, and i cry that i do that to myself. i let every little thing tear me down and break me until i feel like i'm worth nothing. but who do i have if i keep making these walls so my feelings don't get hurt. who do i have if i can't let myself experience anything?

i don't know. who DO i have? if i can't even believe in myself or anyone to not make me cry. and then again it's all me, always me and my feelings that i feel too heavily.

your eyes are swollen.

yes I know, I’ve always been this way.

your wrists are scarred.

yes I know, they’ve been holding my pain.

your cheeks are hallow.

yes I know, my stomach has been turned inside out.

your ribs are showing.

yes I know, they poke out of my shirt.

Now you know, I’ve just always been this way. and this is how things have always been.

I write letters that never get written back.

I write letters that never get written back. I send love that is never received. I say thank you to those that don't appreciate it. I say things that don’t mean as much to the person they’re said to. I run when things get hard. I’m quiet when I feel out of place. I roll my eyes when I’m too scared to speak my truth. Maybe it’s time to burn those letters. Leave those rooms. Speak with my chest. Run into the fire and face everything head on. But here I stand. Quiet. Alone. In my own head as it’s always been.

some days

some days i get so lonely, but i also get so tired from saying hello. so i stare at the wall. the nice, blank, non-talkative wall. and it stares back at me. shining the sun in its reflection, letting the moon take its color. and days pass by. and still, i sit there staring at the wall. waiting, watching, my life pass me by.

so there i remain. staring at a wall that won't hurt my feelings, won't say i'm not enough, and won't take me for granted.

“You should write a novel about your life”

“You should write a novel about your life”, something she’d often hear. Yeah sure, her life was— peculiar to say the least and I guess it’s a life worth the write but it definitely wasn’t something anyone actually wanted to hear. Especially on the precipice of their roaring twenties. Who has a life that bad before their twenties that it’s worth writing about? She didn’t wanna hear that, feel it, especially when she wanted to make something out of herself first. Or maybe too often it was the idea of having to make something out of herself that had burdened her. The struggle, it had to have been worth it of course if she.. made something out of herself. Right?

You turn 18 and you can vote, so you celebrate turning 18. You turn 19, okay no one actually celebrates that, you’re just 19. You turn 20 and damn you’re 20, you’re just a twenty-teen! You turn 21 and you celebrate being able to finally buy alcohol on your own and walk into bars like you’re the shit. You turn 22 and you celebrate .. what do you celebrate? Oh yeah, your Bachelor’s Degree. What about so on and so on? Is it twenty-teen until she’s thirty-teen? She’ll keep celebrating until it constantly feels like she's on the precipice of something great? And nothing actually ever fucking happens?

But she thought too, what happened to normalcy? The struggle to just be.. perfectly normal. Be alright. What about that? The movies had warped her idea that with struggle came greatness, but what if greatness was just— no longer being in that dark place and living a completely normal life? And with a sigh, she dropped her pen and began to wonder when she’d ever actually start writing.

I have an issue with facing things head on

I have an issue with facing things head on, with sitting down and telling myself… okay this is what you do. I used to be good at it. I used to be the one people would go to when they needed a whole spreadsheet on what to do, on what classes to take, on what goals to set up for themselves. But something about UCLA drained me, even if it was just two years. It sucked what soul I had left. It stole my youthful energy, my aspirations of who I wanted to be, of my hope, my dreams, and most definitely my spirit. I thrived there, yes I did, but at the cost of my sanity. Everyday I walked those halls I could feel the pressure crippling me down to my core. My feet crumbling beneath me and my sense of self slowly being overshadowed by the ideals of an institution overthrown with wh!te supremacy. Unfortunately, it led me to the darkest pits I could feel in my bones. I wanted to fade away and never exist. Maybe it was my fault, a young girl moving to the big city in hopes of finally being free. Maybe it was all my fault that I never paced myself. Maybe it truly was all my fault, after the world shut down for a couple years I finally saw hope to escape, hope that masqueraded underneath a veil of thief. I won’t be ungrateful for being able to experience what I have, meet some amazing brilliant minds, but also I won’t be ever truly so blind to say this place didn’t leave me with the most of scars. Or maybe, this place exposed the scars that I thought I had already healed from. “I wish I did this differently, I wish I did that differently.” No. I did my best everyday, actually. I did what I never thought possible, actually. I’ve been working so hard to be where I am right now since I was a young teenage girl, so why… So why do I still feel— like a failure? Will this feeling ever go away? I’m so close to the finish line, yet my energy to keep running is gone, and I hate myself for it.