u/no-omno-omoon

i'm always in the middle of

--

wanting to make them feel

how they made me feel

--

and not letting them feel

how they made me feel.

--

it's a terrible place to live,

between clenched fists

and open hands,

--

between the part of me

that still remembers

every wound by name,

--

and the part of me

that cannot bear

to create another.

--

i know

what it is to carry silence

so heavy

it teaches your shoulders

to bend

before your heart does.

--

i know what it is

to replay a sentence

until it sounds

like something

you deserved.

--

to count every pause

as proof

you were too much,

--

to shrink yourself

until your reflection

looked easier to love,

--

to lie awake

collecting every careless word

like broken glass,

turning each piece over

until your hands forgot

what it meant

not to bleed.

--

there are days

i want my absence

to haunt them.

--

i want my name

to ache

in the back of their throat

the way theirs

once lived in mine.

--

i rehearse every version

where they finally understand.

--

where regret

knocks on their door

as often

as it knocked on mine.

--

i imagine them

staring at the ceiling

long after midnight,

--

counting every moment

they dismissed,

every apology

they never made,

every fracture

they never noticed

because it wasn't theirs

to carry.

--

because maybe then

they would understand

--

that people don't break

all at once.

--

they crack

quietly,

--

little by little,

--

beneath the weight

of unanswered nights,

--

empty chairs,

--

half-finished conversations,

--

and the exhausting question

of whether

they were ever enough.

--

i am a bridge

stretched between

two cliffs —

--

one built from anger,

--

the other

from grace.

--

beneath me,

the river keeps asking

which way

i will fall.

--

some mornings

i collect stones

--

just to imagine

what throwing them

would sound like.

--

the satisfying splash

of revenge.

--

the brief illusion

that pain

can be returned

to its sender.

--

other mornings,

--

i skip those same stones

across the water

--

and watch

--

how even heavy things

--

can learn

--

to touch

--

without sinking.

--

because i remember

--

how unbearable it was

--

to become someone

--

who questioned

their own worth.

--

to search for reasons

inside yourself

for someone else's cruelty.

--

to apologize

for existing.

--

to make survival

for living.

--

i wouldn't wish that

on anyone.

--

not even

the people

who taught me

what it felt like.

--

not because

they earned mercy.

--

not because

they deserve

the softness

i was never given.

--

but because

understanding

bought with suffering

--

is still suffering.

--

and i've spent

enough of my life

wishing pain

would become

a language

someone else

could finally speak.

--

it never translated.

--

it only multiplied.

--

pain is an inheritance.

--

it passes

from trembling hands

to trembling hands,

--

asking each person

to believe

this is simply

how love survives.

--

someone has to decide

--

it ends somewhere.

--

maybe healing

isn't forgetting.

--

maybe it isn't pretending

none of it happened.

--

maybe it is remembering

without rebuilding

the same prison

inside someone else.

--

maybe it is refusing

to become

another sharp edge

in another person's story.

--

maybe that someone

--

has to be me.

--

not because

i've stopped hurting.

--

not because

i've stopped wishing

they understood.

--

but because

i am tired

--

of carrying

their wound

--

like it still

belongs to me.

--

i want my life

to become something

other than a monument

to what they did.

--

i want these hands

to learn

they were made

for more

than holding grief.

--

and if i leave

anything behind,

--

let it be this —

--

the hurt

ended here.

--

it reached me,

--

but it did not

become me.

i don't share my emotions

to people i care about

--

it's not about being avoidant

--

it's just that

they already have enough to carry

and i don't want my heaviness

becoming another thing

resting on their shoulders

--

so i swallow my storms quietly

make grief smaller than it is

soften every sharp edge

before handing pieces of myself away

--

i just noticed

--

i hold other people's hurt

gently in my hands

--

i hold people

like they're fragile porcelain,

as if one wrong movement

from me

could leave cracks in them forever

--

so i carry them carefully

with both hands

with careful words

careful silence

careful love

--

and somewhere along the way

i became careful with myself as well

--

careful not to need too much

careful not to feel too loudly

careful not to become

someone difficult to hold

--

i kept convincing myself

that love meant

taking up less space

--

that being good

meant being easy

meant bleeding quietly

so nobody else had to see it

--

but tenderness

when only given outward

becomes another kind of loneliness

--

because i know how to sit beside people

during their worst nights

i know how to make room

for their grief

without making them feel guilty for it

--

yet when it comes to my own pain

i've learned to fold it inward

--

not because it was never heavy

but because everytime

it slipped from my mouth too honestly

it felt like something in the room

quietly tightened around me

--

as if my feelings

arrived too loud

too deep

too inconvenient

for people who only loved

the softened versions of them

--

people resonate

with what i write

hold my words close

tell me they feel seen inside them

--

yet when those same emotions

live openly in me

instead of on paper

they suddenly become

hard to hold

--

i'm afraid people admire my softness

until it asks something of them

--

until tenderness requires patience

until love requires space

until my hurt is no longer beautiful

and becomes real

--

why is understanding

always something

asked of me first?

--

as if i haven't already carried

every conversation home

and pulled it apart

with trembling hands

--

replaying every word

that leaves my mouth —

searching every sentence

for where i might have been

too much

or not enough

--

i think about my emotions

until they exhaust themselves

--

hold them against the light

from every angle

--

questioning every feeling

before i allow myself to keep it

--

asking whether they're valid

or simply inconvenient

--

whether i'm feeling too deeply

or whether i've just learned

to apologize

for having feelings at all

--

i dissect my emotions carefully

until they no longer feel whole

--

softening them

explaining them

translating them into something

easier to hold

--

and still

before my hurt can fully speak

i find myself reaching

for your side of the story too

--

making room for your silence

your reasons

your exhaustion

your pain

--

while mine waits quietly

at the edge of the room

--

so why does it always feel

like my emotions

are the first thing

that must be sacrificed

for peace to survive?

--

i'm so tired

of wearing strength

like stitched skin

--

weary of being mistaken

for unbreakable

just because i learned

how to ache quietly

--

when deep inside

all i've ever wanted

was to be gathered gently

into the warmth of someone

--

to rest inside their arms

without feeling

like i have to earn

the softness of being held

--

to be seen completely

and not treated

like my broken parts

make me less worthy of love

--

to have someone look at me

after i've handed them

every insecurity

every trembling truth

every hidden fracture

--

and still look at me

like i am worth admiring

--

still hold me

like i'm not difficult to keep

--

where will i run

when even the crevices

i once called "home,"

the places that held me gently,

have turned cold in my hands?

--

what do i become then

when even the smallest spaces

i learned to hide in

no longer feel like shelter

--

i have grown heavy

from always knowing how to hold others

with careful hands

and quieter needs

--

i have spent too long being the one

who stays steady for everyone else

while silently unmaking

parts of myself

--

i want to be kept too

--

not as something handled carefully

out of fear of breaking

--

but as someone

who is finally allowed

to stop holding everything together

--

to be held

without being asked to be less

just to stay

i love how the morning sunlight hits the windows

and walls of these buildings —

the light it produces makes my heart breathe,

as if no worries are chasing me

--

it makes my eyes see

the beauty in something

so out of the blue

--

these trees, mostly verdant and emerald,

still gives that sigh of relief,

and their leaves dance with the breeze

in a language only mornings understand

--

the skies exude vast colors

that never tire the eyes

--

the passing wind

brushing softly against my skin

like the world is careful with me

for once

--

birds drift across the open sky

like strokes of ink on watercolor,

unafraid of the distance

beneath them

--

and even the distant noises

of rushing cars and restless people

fade into something gentle

within this morning glow

--

maybe that is why i remain still,

even briefly —

because these ordinary things

somehow hold me together

where loud words fail

--

in moments like this

i forget how heavy life can become

how the mind learns to carry storms

even on ordinary days

--

because somehow

the sunlight knows where to land

and makes everything feel like

it can be lived through again,

--

and reminds me

i'm still here.

sometimes i wonder

if my name ever crosses your mind

the way yours lingers in mine —

soft, uninvited,

but never unwelcome

--

sometimes i trace the outline

of friendships that didn't end,

just... loosened their grip

until we slipped

quietly out of each other's lives

--

i wonder what would've happened

if we spoke instead of stalled,

if silence didn't grow roots

in the spaces meant for us

--

because i am always on the verge

of reaching —

asking how you are,

holding space for whatever

you're willing to give

--

but even in that,

i hesitate

--

wondering if my voice

is too much,

if my care arrives too full,

too loud,

too heavy

--

so i pull back

before anyone asks me to

--

reminding myself —

connection is a two-way street

and i can't keep walking

toward someone

who never turns around

--

still, there are days

i stand there anyway,

holding the weight

of missing

for the both of us

--

and i start to believe

maybe i am too much

to carry

--

or maybe

it's just the echo

of my own thoughts

stretching something simple

into something heavier than it is

--

i can't help but ask

i can't help but think,

i can't help but care —

deeply

--

i can't help

the way i revisit

what's already gone quiet

as if it might answer me

differently this time

--

i can't help

the way i hold on

a little longer than i should

to people

who have already let go

--

and maybe that's where

the weight comes from —

not from loving

but from carrying it

past where it's meant to rest

--

still,

i am learning

--

that care doesn't have to chase

that missing doesn't have to mean

staying

--

that i can feel everything

fully, honestly —

and still

set it down

--

maybe

that's just how i am

--

and maybe

that's not something

i need to change

just something

i'm learning

to hold

more gently

--

because in the end,

the truth remains —

quiet and unchanging

--

people drift apart

people outgrow

people change

--

and sometimes

there's no reason

loud enough

to argue with that

--

so i let it be

even when i don't understand

--

and i learn,

slowly,

how to loosen my grip too

without losing

the softness in me

that still wants to reach

i remember: the shame of being seen consumes me.

it still does.

i'm afraid to be seen,

to be known,

to be memorized.

--

i'm afraid to be seen;

to have someone read me —

my emotions,

my patterns,

my thoughts —

that they can just see through me

as if i'm a glass

or a window

and there is nothing

to blur me.

--

i'm afraid to be known;

just a while ago,

i ordered a matcha latte.

--

it took too long.

--

my friend laughed —

said i'd probably finish it

faster than they could make it,

like i always do.

--

i'm afraid someone will grasp the paths

i created inside my own little world —

the roads i try to arrange,

but still

lose my way in.

even i, myself

find it strenuous.

--

i'm afraid to be memorized;

like a monologue

they can just reel off

without needing a script.

--

as if i am no longer mine

once spoken aloud,

as if every version of me

lives better

in someone else's mouth.

--

so i practice being unreadable —

softening my edges,

blurring my outlines —

rounding my answers,

keeping my voice even,

looking away

before anyone looks too long —

--

but sometimes i wonder

if disappearing

is just another way

of being seen.

--

and yet...

--

somewhere in me

there is a small, reckless voice

that wants to be recognized —

--

not fully,

not all at once —

--

just enough

to know

i exist

outside my own hiding.

i remember: the shame of being seen consumes me.

it still does.

i'm afraid to be seen,

to be known,

to be memorized.

--

i'm afraid to be seen;

to have someone read me —

my emotions,

my patterns,

my thoughts —

that they can just see through me

as if i'm a glass

or a window

and there is nothing

to blur me.

--

i'm afraid to be known;

just a while ago,

i ordered a matcha latte.

--

it took too long.

--

my friend laughed —

said i'd probably finish it

faster than they could make it,

like i always do.

--

i'm afraid someone will grasp the paths

i created inside my own little world —

the roads i try to arrange,

but still

lose my way in.

even i, myself

find it strenuous.

--

i'm afraid to be memorized;

like a monologue

they can just reel off

without needing a script.

--

as if i am no longer mine

once spoken aloud,

as if every version of me

lives better

in someone else's mouth.

--

so i practice being unreadable —

softening my edges,

blurring my outlines —

rounding my answers,

keeping my voice even,

looking away

before anyone looks too long —

--

but sometimes i wonder

if disappearing

is just another way

of being seen.

--

and yet...

--

somewhere in me

there is a small, reckless voice

that wants to be recognized —

--

not fully,

not all at once —

--

just enough

to know

i exist

outside my own hiding.