Cancer doesn’t crash in
like a storm.
It seeps in.
Quiet.
Cruel.
Certain.

It starts with a phone call,
a strange tone in someone’s voice,
a word you never wanted to hear
said out loud in a room that
suddenly forgets how to breathe.

And from there,
the world splits.

The person you love
still smiles,
still says they’re fine.
but the light behind their eyes
flickers.
Their body becomes a battlefield
no one asked to fight on.

You watch them shrink
while trying to stay brave.
Trying to laugh through nausea.
Trying to hide pain
like it’s a gift
to keep you from worrying.

And it steals them
bit by bit.
hair,
weight,
strength,
hope.

It doesn’t care
if they were kind,
if they were needed.

It just takes.

And the worst part?
You can’t hate it out loud.
Can’t punch it.
Can’t reason with it.
Can’t make it stop.

All you can do
is hold their hand
until one day
you can’t.

And you’re left
with a silence
that screams.

Some mornings,
I catch myself in the mirror
and think,
maybe.
Maybe I look okay today.
Pretty, even.

But then a photo appears,
a tag,
a candid,
a frozen frame I didn’t choose.
And suddenly,
my smile feels crooked,
my face too round,
my eyes unsure of themselves.

I tilt my head,
try to see what others might,
but I never find it.
Not really.

My friends,
they shine like they were born to.
Like their beauty just exists
without effort.
I stand beside them
and shrink.
Even on my best days,
I feel like the shadow
in someone else’s light.

And it hurts.
To want to feel beautiful
and never fully get there.
To wonder if I’m the only one
who sees this stranger in my skin.
If maybe I’m just broken
in how I see myself.

I wish I could borrow your eyes
just for a second—
to know if the ugly I see
is real,
or just something I’ve learned
to believe.

Because I want to feel
what they say I am.
Not just sometimes.
Not just almost.

But truly.

I fear the end
more than I show.
Not the darkness,
but the silence
that follows.
The idea that one day,
the sun will rise
and I won’t.

So I savor things
too much.
The way light filters
through morning blinds.
The laugh I wasn’t expecting.
The song that hits
just right.
I notice everything,
because I’m scared
it could be the last time
I do.

I hold people longer.
Say “I love you” more.
Take photos of nothing
just to prove I was here,
that this happened,
that I lived.

Sometimes,
the fear keeps me up.
Other times,
it pushes me to dance
in the middle of my room
at 1 a.m.
like I’ve got forever.

I want to live
like it matters.
Because it does.
Even if no one remembers.
Even if the ending
is quiet.

I'm not ready to go.
So while I’m here.
I’ll hold tighter,
breathe deeper,
and love like it’s
the only thing
that makes us
immortal.

My mind doesn’t whisper,
it loops.
Spins circles out of silence,
makes meaning from a glance,
a pause,
a word
that maybe meant nothing at all.

I replay conversations
like they’re evidence.
Did I say too much?
Not enough?
Did they mean what I think they meant—
or am I just making storms
out of weather that passed?

I overanalyze the smile I gave,
the message I sent,
the second it took them to reply.
I measure worth
in milliseconds,
build whole tragedies
from tiny moments.

People say,
“Just stop thinking about it.”
Like that’s something
I haven’t already begged my brain
a thousand times to do.

I want peace.
But my peace
comes “what ifs,”
with echoes of things
no one else remembers
but me.

It's exhausting,
to feel everything
twice.
once when it happens,
and then forever after
in my head.

I do things
before my thoughts can catch them.
Say yes
before the question’s finished.
Cut my hair at midnight,
text what I shouldn’t,
leave when I should stay
and stay when I should run.

I chase feelings
like fireflies,
even when they burn.
Jump in deep
without checking
if I can swim.
I live in now.
Only now.
Because tomorrow always feels
too far,
too fake.

It’s not always brave.
Sometimes it’s messy.
Sometimes it’s regret
knocking at 3 a.m.
with a list of everything
I should’ve done
differently.

But in the chaos
there’s truth.
In the sparks,
there’s life.

I don’t always get it right.
I rarely get it calm.
But I get it real.

I never think twice.
And somehow,
that’s where I feel most like
myself.

I bite.
Not with teeth.
with silence,
with sharp glances,
with walls built higher than your reach.

I’m not cruel.
I’m just tired
of being kind first
and torn apart second.

You call it attitude.
I call it armor.
Because being soft
never saved me.
It only made the fall hurt more.

So I speak less now.
Agree less.
Trust less.
I pull away before someone has the chance
to walk out first.

It’s not that I don’t want love.
I’ve learned that even “I care about you”
can come with conditions.
Even soft hands
can leave bruises
you can’t see.

I bite
because once,
I didn’t.
And it nearly broke me.

Don’t tell me what’s holy when your visions of heaven sounds like chains.
You say i’m free but only if I kneel.
Only if I speak your truth instead of mine.

You hand me a rulebook written in fear,
Marked with sins for simply being human.
Cover your hair,
Lower your voice,
Don’t feel that,
Don’t love them,
Don’t question,
Don’t doubt.

You say ‘god’ watches,
But it feels more like you are.

Policing bodies,
Minds,
And voiced that dare to excuse outside your lines.
Faith should never feel like a muzzle.
Worship should not be forced into trembling hands.

Believe if you believe.
But don’t make me carry the weight of a ‘god’ I didn’t choose.
Don’t call it salvation if it begins with fear.
Let me think.
Let me feel.
Let me choose what is sacred to me.

Because truth,
If it matters at all,
Shouldn’t need
To be forced.