Softer Than This
You walk into rooms like you're apologizing for existing.
Like if you stay quiet enough, small enough, pretty enough, then maybe nobody will notice the mess underneath your skin.
But they do. They always do.
Maybe not in the ways you think, but they noticed the way your smile hesitates half a second too long. The way you joke before anyone can ask if you're okay. The way you wear confidence like a borrowed clothing that never quite fits right.
And the worst part of all, is you remember being softer than this.
You remember when mirrors were just mirrors, before they became evidence.
Before every reflection turned into a court room where you're both the judge and the thing being judged.
Now every morning feels like a negotiation between who you are and who you think people would love more.
So you change things, Hair color, Music taste, the way you talk, the way you laugh. You build yourself out of scraps from movies and songs and people you wish you could be. Hoping that eventually something will feel real.
But at night, when everything gets quiet. You still feel that hollow ache sitting in your chest like an unanswered question.
And nobody tells you how exhausting it is to feel everything this deeply.
To replay conversations in your head like crime scenes. To miss people before they're even gone.
To want someone to understand you completely, while also wanting to disappear the second the get too close.
People call you dramatic sometimes. Sensitive. Complicated. But they don't understand that your mind is loud all of the time.
That even ordinary days feel cinematic to you. Every song becomes a memory, every hallway becomes a metaphor.
And every little rejection feels like proof that maybe you were never enough to begin with.
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