[  ] i am Diane Nguyen
[  ] when the lights are off and the room's too quiet.
[  ] when i start spiraling over nothing,
[  ] but pretend i’m just tired.
[  ] when i swallow the urge to say, “i’m not okay,”
[  ] because i don’t want to ruin the vibe.
[  ] i get her.
[  ] she writes things she’ll never publish
[  ] and calls it healing.
[  ] me too.

[  ] i am Flame Princess.
[  ] masking my heat with forced politeness,
[  ] but the fire kicks at the cracks in my voice.
[  ] i was taught too young that my feelings were too much
[  ] so i bottled them.
[  ] and when the bottle breaks,
[  ] i’m the villain.
[  ] one day you’ll get it
[  ] that’s never who i was.
[  ] i’m just a girl who’s overstimulated,
[  ] trying not to combust.
[  ] trying to regulate in an unadjusted world.


[  ] i am Kirk Gleason,
[  ] Full of chaotic side character energy.
[  ] i tell stories with weirdly specific details
[  ] so no one notices i’m actually unraveling.
[  ] being silly is easier than being seen.
[  ] i make people laugh so noone ever stops to ask
[  ] The dreaded "are you okay"
[  ] I make people laugh because if they’re laughing,
[  ] they’ll stay.

[  ] I am Jake the Dog,
[  ] soft and simple.
[  ] i love hard and think deep.
[  ] i hold onto weird metaphors
[  ] about cups and pillow forts
[  ] I tell myself not to get hung up on imaginary things
[  ] because that’s how i understand the world.
[  ] i just wanna chill,
[  ] but my brain won’t always let me.
[  ] yet still I try, cause to love life you need problems
[  ] And i am determined to live to my to its fullest

[  ] i am Ted Mosby,
[  ] annoyingly romantic.
[  ] the kind who falls in love in soft, slow ways
[ ] not with only with grand gestures, but with quiet familiarity.
[  ] The type to romanticise shared eyecontact and exchanged looks
[  ] i write poems about people
[  ] who don’t know they broke my heart.
[  ] Though i still think love is worth the mess
[  ] Even when i doubt myself i always know
[  ] Loving someone is never a waste

[  ] and i’m Periwinkle.
[  ] the soft, sparkly part of me i locked in a box
[  ] when life got loud.
[  ] When life didn't understand I was only a child
[  ] i still believe in her.
[  ] i still believes she's there.
[  ] The little kid, with not so little dreams
[  ] she danced in the frost and thought the world was kind.
[  ] she’s quiet now,
[  ] Her sparkle not so bright
[  ] but she’s not gone, just dimmed
[  ] she still hides in old drawings and weird dreams like buried sea glass on a beach

[  ] i’m not all these people all the time.
[  ] but they live in me
[  ] in the sighs i swallow,
[  ] in the jokes i tell too loud,
[  ] in the poems no one reads.

[  ] i wear them like second hand hoodies,
[  ] hoping one won’t smell too much like someone else.
[  ] some days i throw them all on at once,
[  ] just to feel something that fits.
[  ] some days i stare at the pile
[  ] and don’t even bother.

[  ] i just want someone to notice
[  ] without me having to ask.
[  ] someone to say,
[  ] “i see you , even the parts you hide.”

[  ] until then,
[  ] Ill keep hiding my true self,
[  ] Untill I'm truly seen
[  ] Piecing myself together with glitter glue and stubborn hope,
[  ] soft rage and borrowed words.

[  ] and maybe i’m still becoming.
[  ] and maybe that’s okay.

[ ] I know it's not me

[ ] Never has been

[ ] Never will be

[ ] Yet every time you pull me closer

[ ] Press me to your heart

[ ] I think for just a moment

[ ] You might feel the same way

[ ] It's a foolish thought, I know

[ ] But I can’t help but think it

[ ] When I'm lying next to you

[ ] Our bodies pressed together

[ ] Feeling each other's warmth

[ ] Our heartbeats slow down

[ ] The world fades away

[ ] And you begin to feel like home

[ ]You deny the rumours

[ ] Say "We're just good friends"

[ ] Yet I leave wrapped in the ghost of your cologne, a scent that lingers longer than you ever will

[ ] Your absence makes itself known before you even go, but your gaze never lets me leave

[ ] Our eyes hold stares deep upon each other's souls

[ ] In the quiet, we shift closer, like our bodies know what we won't say

[ ] Like our knees have magnets in them, that always gravitate  

[ ]And don't like to separate  

[ ] But you still say it doesn't mean anything

[ ] I love you

[ ] And I know you love me too

[ ] But you don't know that I love you in a different way

[ ] Because I don't think you feel the same

[ ] And I don't think you ever will  

[ ] So I'll hold you close in the moment  

[ ] Dare not whisper what my heart deeply feels

[ ] You say i love you

[ ]" I love you more "I love you most"

[ ] But the diffrnece between you and I is you mean it platonically  

[ ] It's not just a friendship to me, though that's what it seems

[ ] Even if you don't understand

[ ] When I say those words, my heart beats with a love that's silent but real

[ ] So when I say "I love you most," its me telling you how i secretly feel

[] Isn't it strange how paths can bend and sway,
[] Three years near, yet always worlds away.

[] Same school, same halls, yet never a sign,
[] Until fate decided the stars should align.

[] When the snow fell soft, our worlds entwined,
[] A friendship was born, so perfectly timed.

[] Since that moment, we’ve held on close,
[] Through every test, through highs and lows.

[] Late-night calls and laughter so bright,
[] Cuddles on couches that just felt right.

[] Cards on the table, some *****, some not,
[] Secrets between us that won’t be forgot.

[] He is the warmth when the cold winds bite,
[] A voice that is there to comfort, that tells me, you’ll be alright.

[] He lights up rooms without a clue,
[] His laughter paints even the dullest hue.

[] One hug from him bares the weight,
[] Just 8 seconds, and it all dissipates.

[] He teaches me love, he teaches me trust,
[] That hearts don’t break, they only rust.

[] One day, when we’ve found our way,
[] Our families will grow together, and choose to stay that way.

[] Through every twist and turn that life creates
[] Our bond stands strong and true, it never breaks

[] I’ll always have him, and he’ll have me
[] Side by side, where we’re meant to be.

When your shadow touches mine,
that's the closest our souls ever get.

Lovers only from a distance,
lovers only in a daydream.

Our eyes play chase through the hallways,
a constant tag of exchanged looks
from you to me.

Pretend not to notice,
pretend not to care.

But I see you,
and sometimes I think you see me too.

You are the secret sigh,
the secret whisper of my heart.

Imaginary you smiles,
imaginary me believes it meant something.

I build a whole world in my head,
where you reach out,
where you choose me,
where you don't even hesitate.

But the truth is—
you don't know me.
You probably never will.

And all of this,
all of this ache,
all of this hope,
is something I made up.

So I’ll smile across the room,
catch your eye for a second,
and let the dream live a little longer.

I’m scared.
Scared I’ve been too vulnerable.
Scared I trusted too much.
Scared I’ve gotten my hopes up.

I should have known by now
nothing this good is ever real
Nothing ever has been.
Nothing ever will be.
And it’s time to accept that.

I have always been disappointed,
since I was a little girl,
and somehow,
I have made peace with that.

But this time,
this time I want it to be different.
I want it to stick.
I want you to stay.

I’m sorry I love too strongly,
too loudly,
too much.
But there’s something about you
something I can’t explain.

I have never felt safer before,
and yet,
I have never been more terrified.

I’m scared I will let down all my walls,
let you in,
only for you to look around
and decide you don’t like what you see.

I’m scared I’ll scare you away.
I’m scared you’ll be like everyone else.

I’m scared.
I want it to stick.
I want you to stay.

[  ] I have loved you all since the day we first met
[  ] And no matter what I say, I will always love you
[  ] I love and admire you all in a way that no one understands
[  ] In a way even I don't fully understand

[  ] It's a tie that's woven from laughter and tears
[  ] From late-night conversations and all of our unspoken fears
[  ] But it's a bond that's strong and true
[  ] And I am so grateful to know all of you

[  ] Though this bond is still unfolding, its depth I can already see
[  ] A sibling-like love, forged in a short time, yet was clearly always meant to be
[  ] We bicker and argue, I annoy you, you annoy me
[  ] But hidden within our chaos, our friendship shines bright and carefree

[  ] In the stillness of the night, we'd talk for hours on end
[  ] Late-night FaceTime calls, our connection won't ever bend

[  ] We'd laugh, we'd joke, and share our hearts
[  ] And in those moments, I know that our friendship will never fall apart
[  ] Through every twist and turn, our friendship will remain
[  ] A constant in the chaos, a love that's always the same

[  ] We'll navigate life's journey, side by side,
[  ] You'll be the aunties and uncles who spoil my kids, who tell them stories of our past
[  ] Our travels , the drama, the inside jokes and all of  the happy parts
[  ] A constant presence in our lives, a love that carries on through all of our hearts

[  ] As we start our own futures and begin to build our own families, a lifelong bond we'll for all time share
[  ] no matter what happens i will always be there
[  ] In each other's love and support, we'll forever have a place to call our own
[  ] Forever connected, forever family, forever at home.
[  ] We are in this world together and as long as we have each other, I know we will never be alone.

Push and pull
that's what you always seem to do.
I pour my whole soul into you,
and you answer with echoes
faint whispers
fading before they reach me.

I stretch myself thin
just to meet you halfway.
I ask if you're okay
even when I'm not.
I hug you
like maybe it’ll fix everything.

And still
you push me away.
You pushed me away.
I should’ve seen it.
A sign,
a shift.
Maybe you started to realize.
Maybe I came on too strong.
Maybe you finally got tired
tired of me.
Maybe time caught up to the truth,
and now you see me
how everyone else does.

So I step back.
I give you space,
let silence swell between us like fog.
I become a ghost in my own care,
quiet, careful, watching from the edge.

But like a fish out of water,
your breath turns shallow
and you pull me back in.
Suddenly, you’re the one
making sure I'm okay.
You trace the shape of my boundaries,
say you’re worried,
say you’re always here.

And I wonder
which version of you is true?
The one who holds me close,
or the one who keeps letting go?

And maybe that's what we are
a tide that never decides
whether to crash or retreat.
But just like the push and pull of the ocean,
while rough, we flow in a kind of harmony.
And although my energy is starting to erode,
I stay
a shoreline, waiting,
weathered but wide open.
Because some tides never stop returning,
even when they forget why they came.

I never thought I’d see the day
when your name felt strange in my mouth.
I miss you.
I miss who we were.
But loving you started to feel like holding my breath,
and after a while, I just needed air.

It was like a tie pulled too tight,
a knot I picked at ’til my fingers bled.
Some days, I still sit with the string in my hands,
trying to weave the loose threads of our friendship,
wondering how I let it break—
how I missed the moment we started unraveling.

It’s hard to see exactly where the hell I went wrong.
Maybe everywhere.
Maybe nowhere at all.

The world was always too loud for me—
clattering, crashing, caving in—
but you made it softer.
Like the sweater you gave me,
promising I’d always have you when I wore it.
You muffled the chaos just by being near,
pulling all the noise into your own sleeves,
leaving me just enough silence to breathe.

Now, when you laugh,
it sounds like it’s meant for someone else.

It shouldn’t be for someone else.
It should be with me.
It was always with me.

But you’ve changed.
You are exactly who you said you’d never be.
And I think you know that.
Maybe that’s why you left.

I grew up.
And you grew away.

I think you smoke too much.
I think your friends all ****.
We never did figure out why our parents fought so much.
Maybe they saw the ending before we did.
Maybe they recognized the wreck in us
before we were old enough to read the signs.

After you,
I gave up on love.
Left it folded at the back of my closet,
next to the sweater I never gave back.

I miss the old days
the sleepovers, the warmth,
sneaking in late and crashing on your floor,
blanket forts and cartoons at 2 a.m.,
fortresses of giggles and bruised hearts
we never talked about.

With you, I felt safe.

I’d leave my sweater on your porch,
you’d leave your bag under my stairs.

Don’t go back to your old place.
It was never really home anyway.
The locks are constantly getting changed,
the rooms are colder, emptier,
and the walls have already forgotten us.

I bet it still looks the same  
From when i ran away that day

We survived it by pretending,
by making forts out of broken things
but pretending doesn’t work forever.
Pretending only got us so far.

Don’t leave just yet.
There are still games we never finished,
stories still left untold,
lullabies stuck somewhere in our throats,
pieces of us tucked in the corners,
waiting to be found
like loose change in the old couch.

I do miss that old house
the old memories,
the giggles and the cries.
But the last light between us flickered.
Maybe it was always meant to burn out.

I always used to say,
“Stay a little longer.”
Stay, even when the lights went out.
Stay, even when it stopped feeling easy.
Stay, even when I stopped believing you would.

But that’s over now.
The light burned out a long time ago.
I kept using my matches to relight it,
but you didn’t want to use any of your own.

It doesn’t matter now.
But sometimes,
it still feels like it does.

[ ] You were my wish
[ ] My wish upon a shooting star
[ ] The fairytale fantasy I longed for
[ ] But only ever saw from afar
[ ] And I know such opportunities don't come often
[ ] Without leaving a lasting scar
[ ] I held you close in secret dreams
[ ] And cherished our friendship's quiet themes


[ ] You were my wish
[ ] And I meant it with my whole heart
[ ] Though I knew that you didn't feel the same from the start
[ ] Yet you unravelled the threads of my heart
[ ] Leaving me lying there
[ ] Torn apart


[ ] You were my wish
[ ] A shooting star that flashed across my sky
[ ] I wished for you, for us, for a love that would last
[ ] But like a shooting star, you vanished before it got light
[ ] In the silence, I confront the weight of my unspoken heart
[ ] Memories of our moments are forever locked apart
[ ] The fragments of a love that I couldn't find the words to start


[ ] You were my wish, a dream that didn't come true
[ ] I'm left with just this emptiness
[ ] A longing that still echoes through
[ ] Time and time again, I wished for you
[ ] And now I'm left to wonder why
[ ] But you were my wish, my heart's deepest sigh
[ ] The bitter-sweet reminder of what could never be
[ ] Forever etched into my mind
[ ] a memory I'll never leave behind
[ ] A dream that stays with me for all of eternity

[  ] We didn’t date,
[  ] Yet you tell people we did.
[  ] We hardly even talked,
[  ] yet you act like we spent our lives together
[  ] As if i left without a word
[  ] Except there were words
[  ] You just didn’t listen.

[  ] Now you ask them why I left,
[  ] like there was something to leave to begin with.
[  ] Like I held your hand, whispered promises,
[  ] let you in—
[  ] when all I did was exist near you.

[  ] You get your friends to interrogate me,
[  ] like I owe them answers.
[  ] Like I owe you anything at all.
[  ] They ask what happened,
[  ] why I “broke your heart,”
[  ] but I didn’t realize you had given it away to begin with.

[  ] You follow me through halls,
[  ] a shadow I never asked for.
[  ] Standing just close enough to remind me
[  ] that you don’t know how to let go.
[  ] That you can’t take silence as an answer.

[  ] And when I talk to my friends,
[  ] there you are, lingering,
[  ] Like a shadow creeping into spaces where you were never meant to be.
[  ]  A ghost desperate to haunt something that was never yours.

[  ] It’s almost funny,
[  ] how someone I barely knew
[  ] can’t seem to untangle themselves from me.
[  ] How someone I never loved
[  ] Plays the victim in a story that was never finished to begin with.

The weak breeze whispers nothing
the water screams sublime.
His feet shift, teeter-totter
deep breaths, stand back, it’s time.

Toes untouch the overpass
soon he’s water-bound.
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
the view from halfway down.

A little wind, a summer sun
a river rich and regal.
A flood of fond endorphins
brings a calm that knows no equal.

You’re flying now, you see things
much more clear than from the ground.
It's all okay, or it would be
were you not now halfway down.

Thrash to break from gravity
what now could slow the drop?
All I’d give for toes to touch
the safety back at top.

But this is it, the deed is done
silence drowns the sound.
Before I leaped I should've seen
the view from halfway down.

I really should’ve thought about
the view from halfway down.
I wish I could've known about
the view from halfway down—

We are drowning
not in water, but in silence,
each breath swallowed,
a hollow echo of what once was.

The sky forgets the blue it once wore,
now draped in smoke-thick sighs,
the wind hums of almosts and befores,
while hope slips away beneath the tides.

And the sun, now too tired to fight,
bleeds light into a sea that won’t remember,
its warmth wearing down
dying like a goodbye that came too soon.

Islands reach, grasping for air, for mercy,
fingers of earth, worn down by our neglect,
their shadows stretch, long and desperate,
suffocating beneath the weight of what we chose to ignore.

Plastic ghosts cling to the shorelines,
whispering lullabies in a language
we refuse to understand,
as they slowly choke on the promises we broke.

Every wave folds a secret into itself,
ice that cracks beneath the weight of silence,
echoes of futures we threw away,
suffocated by the choices we refuse to face.

Like writing a book where the plot is clear,  
yet still, you're caught by the ending,
the ending you could have rewritten
but chose instead to leave as it was.



We carve comfort into the sea’s bones,
etching “it’s fine” into rising tides,
yet every flood speaks what we won’t
this silence isn’t survival, it’s surrender.



(and here is a haiku based off of that <3)

I watch and I wait,
thinking it is not my fight
the tide swallows time.

we thought the sea's fate
was never ours to carry,
so we let it sink.

Footprints on wet sand,
washed away before I move
was I ever here?

You leaned on me,

And I held on tight,

Cuddling together,

Just as friends,

On a Saturday night.

Your laughter warm,

And smile bright,

Your touch was gentle,

But never mine.

I stayed in the shadows,

Watching you shine,

Supporting you quietly,

Watching you thrive

I heard your thoughts,

I caught your tears,

And supported your dreams,

But I never became one.

I watched you reach out

For what I’d never be.

And you broke me gently,

Never your intention,

And never knowing,

But I know you felt it.

Our unspoken love,

Platonic or not,

It is forever growing.

You love her the way I love you,
soft and quiet,
with eyes that linger but never stay.

You speak her name
the way I whisper yours
in the poems no one reads
in the hopes that writing it
will make the hurting stop

It isn’t cruel
you’re not unkind
you just love
the way I do
hoping and hurting
never knowing
someone’s doing the same for you

I stand beside you
your anchor, your echo
the hand that’s there for comfort
guiding you through the night
I hold your pain
cheer you on
and laugh
when all I want to do is cry

I’ve loved you silently,
for almost a year now,
keeping my feelings hidden away,
in words I’ll never say.

And sometimes
I wish I was them
wish I had the light
that makes your eyes soften
the way they do for her

Wish I was the one
you looked at like that
like I was something more
than just your friend
When the days get too heavy,
I’m there to carry it with you,
I’ll bear the weight of your unspoken truths,
secretly knowing all too well how it feels.
I let you know you can tell me everything
let it all fall,
without needing to say more.

I listen,
never pushing,
but always hoping you’ll see
how much I wish
I could be more than just your friend.

I love you
just like you love them,
from the edge of the room,
always there,
always waiting,
for a moment
that never comes.

So we sit in this symmetry,
you pining, me silently aching,
both of us tangled in love
for someone who’ll never love us back
the way we wish they would