They say I’m lucky
to be here.
Boarding school.
Safe.
Fed.
Books in my hands,
a roof that doesn’t leak.
But luck feels like a cruel joke
when you cry in a bed
no one tucked you into.

My stepmom’s voice doesn’t need to travel far—
it lives in me now.
“You’re too much.”
“You ruin everything.”
“No wonder your mother left.”
And I hate how fast I believe her.
How deep those words go.

Because my real mum did leave.
Not by accident.
Not by death.
She left because she didn’t want to be a mum.
Not my mum.
Not with me in the picture.
Fifteen years old
and I still wonder
what it was about me
that made her walk away.

Was I born too loud?
Too soft?
Too inconvenient to keep?

She sends postcards sometimes.
From places I’ve never been.
Smiling in sunglasses,
signing with love
like she remembers what that means.
But love doesn’t show up twice a year
and forget your birthday.

So I sit here,
in classrooms where no one knows
why I flinch at kindness,
why I don't raise my hand.
They don’t see the girl
who keeps herself small
so she won’t be sent away again.

I imagine the van sometimes—
that guy with the dog and the dust roads.
I imagine running,
not toward something,
but away.
From the house that wasn’t mine.
From the voice that broke me.
From the silence my mother left behind.

But what if I never run?
What if I just grow older
and colder,
wearing a mask that looks like success
but feels like surviving?

What if I stay here—
the girl left behind twice,
too scared to dream,
too used to being unwanted
to believe she could ever be more?

What if I don’t make it—
and no one notices
because they never expected me to
in the first place?

oh yay,
it’s happening again.
nature’s monthly gift,
delivered straight to my underwear
like a subscription box from hell.
no tracking number.
no warning.
just splat!
hope you weren’t planning on dignity today.
but it’s okay.

because this is beautiful.
this is womanhood.
this is the magical time
where your organs weep
and everyone tells you to smile through it.

and the best part?
it’s totally normal!
you know, just a causal internal bleeding event
that lasts 5 to 7 working days.

love that journey for me.

meanwhile—
boys get to walk around
untouched,
unpunched,
completely unaware that their insides
aren’t staging a revolution once a month.
“oh, i stubbed my toe!”
congrats, jason.
try bleeding from places you don’t talk about in science class
and still showing up to algebra.

and let’s not forget
the experts
the boys in gym class
who say “ew” at a pad
like it’s cursed.
buddy, you can’t even make eye contact with a ******
without flinching like it’s a hand grenade.

but sure,
go off.
tell me how strong you are
because you can bench 120
while i’m surviving a bloodbath
with a smile and a midterm.

also—
shoutout to the marketing team
that decided to name pads like
“whisper”
and “cloud comfort.”
what i need is something called
“armour of god”
or “crime scene control.”

but no,
let’s keep pretending
this is sacred.
let’s keep painting it pink
and telling girls
“you’re a woman now.”

oh, am i?
cool.
then where’s my crown?
where’s my painkiller budget?
where’s the week off from school
for bleeding and not burning the building down?

because if men bled once a month?
we’d have national holidays.
paid leave.
parades.
blood themed energy drinks.

but me?
i get called “dramatic.”
for bleeding.
from inside.

so yeah,
super fun being a girl.
five stars.
would recommend.
can’t wait to do it again
next month.

They cheered for them—
moms with cameras, dads with proud eyes—
I stood alone,
four medals in my hands,
three gold, one silver,
like they meant something.

I ran fast today.
I always do.
People say it’s talent.
My stepmom says
it’s because I like running from my problems.
She laughs when she says it.

She doesn’t know—
I run
because when I run,
the pain stays behind
for a while.

No blades.
No pills.
Just breath and burning legs
and the sound of my heart
trying to beat louder than the thoughts.

I crossed every line first
but still came last
in the only race that mattered—
the one where someone waits
at the end.

Sometimes I wonder
what it would feel like
to look into the crowd
and see someone who looks like love.
To have someone call my name
like it meant home.
I wish I had that kind of family—
the kind you don’t have to earn.

My body is a locked display

In a museum no one walks through.

Glass walls, warnings not to touch—

No map, no key, no clue.

My voice is a candle in a wind tunnel,
Flickering, fighting to stay lit.

Even when I bleed in metaphors,

They call it "just teenage ****."

I don’t wear scars like stories,

I hide them like shameful art—

Little tally marks of silence

Etched deep into my skin and heart.

I’m not broken—I’m unfinished.

A sketch left out in the rain.

Dripping lines and missing pieces,

A name forgotten, a frame of pain.

No mother here—just a woman

Who counts my failures with her eyes.
Sharp tongue, cold hands, fake smiles,
Every “what’s wrong with you?” a knife.

My dad?
He's a ghost with a phone.

Scrolls past birthdays like spam.

He only shows up in my nightmares,

And even there, he never gives a ****.

I eat dinner with silence.

Sleep under a roof but not a home.

The walls here echo insults,

And still I face it all alone.

I laugh in the right places,

Say “I’m just tired”like a chant.

But my wrists hum when the house goes quiet,

And I dream of “no more” when I can’t.

No one checks the corners

Where I fold myself at night.

They just praise me for being quiet,

For staying out of sight.

I don’t cry—I leak slowly,

Like a pipe left to rust and split.

This isn’t sadness, it’s erosion.

And I’m disappearing bit by bit.

We don't fight
With fists or guns
But with words;
Ideas, ideals and puns.

I don’t know, maybe it’s the coffee—
Black as the night, strong as a decision
I can’t take back,
But I always add too much sugar,
And it never tastes right.

Or maybe it’s the way the sun hits my face
In the morning,
Like it’s trying to wake me up
When I don’t want to be woken,
Like it’s pushing me toward something
I’m not ready for.
I could stay in bed forever,
Pretend the world’s not spinning,
But the coffee's still too hot to hold.

Have you ever really listened to heavy metal?
Not the fake stuff,
But the kind that rips through your bones,
Makes your veins pulse with something
That feels like rage—
Or is it just the chaos in me,
The beat of a drum
That’s louder than my heart?
I get lost in it,
Like I get lost in my own head
Sometimes,
When I don’t know if I’m screaming
Or just thinking too loud.
Maybe the music’s the only thing
That makes sense anymore.

But then again,
I start thinking about how
All this stuff—coffee, music, sunshine—
It’s all a distraction, right?
Just a way to keep me from looking
At the cracks in my mind,
The ones that seem to grow
When I’m not paying attention.
It’s like I’m trying to outrun myself
With cups of caffeine and guitar riffs
And pretending I’m okay
When I’m anything but.

I keep saying I’ll stop—
Stop the overthinking, the spiraling,
The chaos I can’t shake.
But the truth is,
I don’t know how to stop falling.
Maybe it’s easier to keep crumbling,
To let the pieces scatter like broken glass,
To fall apart slowly enough
That no one notices until it’s too late.

And maybe that's all I’ll ever be—
A string of distractions,
A girl lost in her own mess,
Until the last bit of me
Finally falls away
And no one even knows
I was here at all.