how could i not?

they don't remember

hey hi how are you doing great thanks and you good yeah everything's fine work is good life is good you know all good

i just want to be seen. to be heard. to be appreciated.
but i feel like nothing more than a flea—jumping from one person to the next, searching for a home.
and eventually, i'll be brushed off. exterminated.

not even me.
especially me.
i don't want me.
i've never liked me.
i hated, and still hate me.

how could i not?

i thought by now i would have known myself.
as a kid, i thought by now i would have loved.
i thought i would be someone.

instead, i watch me grieving—
for who i would have been,
for who i wished i would have become,
for who i actually am.

how wouldn't i hate me, when this body, and mind keep attacking itself? my immune system declared war long ago. for nearly 20 years, my cells have waged their silent rebellion.

so what am i?
the cells?
the body?
neither.
or both.

i cannot be happy or proud of myself. not because i don't want to. i would like to celebrate. i'd like to lay one of these stones down for once. but they're fused to me. and i really only see the glass half empty.

right now?
no.
always.

by now i would have made everybody proud.
my parents would be proud of me.
instead, they are worried about my life and my sanity.
by now i would already be working the job i wanted.
by now my grandparents would have also been proud of me.
instead, they worry about my future.

for all my life i always awaited to be celebrated.

i remember it all. my history of hating. that bitter moment of superiority i once felt—like it would save me. why is it that hate is what we reach for, again and again?
it's addictive.
immortal.

everything slips through my fingers.
my time my life my sanity my will
i don't know how to catch it.

and i daily feed myself hate.
i should stop.
i want to stop.
but i can't.
i won't.
i just keep going.

i find myself just laughing or making jokes about my situation because if i wouldn't do it i would just cry,
cry forever until i drown in my own misery.

when i ask—desperate, hopeful—for more.
they leave.

i searched for them in the crowd. i asked, after. but they couldn't remember. already forgotten.

do you remember me?
do you know that i exist?

by now i would have been an actual adult—
someone who doesn't seek, incessantly, others' opinion or company.
instead, i find myself constantly checking the phone,
waiting for messages or calls that will never come.

by now i would have already experienced love.
i would have already had a boyfriend.
instead, i find myself alone and in this limbo of inexperience from which i cannot exit.
i'm stuck there.

did they make me hate myself?
maybe.
but maybe that's just another excuse.
i should be stronger than this.
i should stop blaming them.

there shouldn't and there isn’t a timeline, a perfect time you have to do to experience things in life.
but there is. i feel it. i see it.
i am growing and my time is slipping and i am remaining still.

death still.

i sigh but the fog is dawning on me, it is so thick i don't see my hands anymore. i don't know if i am awake or sleeping. i just see nothing. the uncertainty is daunting.

but hating them is the only relief i know. and blaming them? that's the only thing that feels like control.

and when, after years—years—i complain about it,
about how little they seem to care,
suddenly i'm the problem.
why can't i just be... nicer?

they see me happy. they look at me and cannot understand my claims of unhappiness. isn't it me who laughs who smiles who is still willingly trying to live? who is trying to get out of my hole. but i am just someone they know as happy.

they don’t even think, i don’t let them think,
about other latent sentiments i possess.
that possess me.

emotions are embarrassing, they think. not useful.

would you actually hear me out if i said, no, i am not okay?
or would you just dismiss me, say some overused sentence,
just to move to another subject?

would you actually see me cry freely?
or would you try to make me stop as soon as possible
because it embarrasses you?

would you actually take some time off for me?
no, you wouldn't.

but i would.
i would do everything.

i would like—just once—to stop. to look at what i've done. to say: that mattered. that was something. but i can't.

i go back to my childhood.
i go back to my adolescence.
i go back
i go back
i go back.

just to relive moments that i know, moments inscribed in my memory, moments marked on my soul.
just to remind myself of what i lost.

i catch me seeing photos of what was and grieving the pictures that will never be.

i'm failing at everything. i am failing at life and i am scared that once i start to understand how it works it would be too late. the clock is ticking faster than ever. is ticking faster now that i am not a child anymore.

by now i would have been someone my younger self would have liked to become.
instead, i don't remember what my younger self wanted.
she just wanted to be someone. or something.

while i am just a ghost,
trying to find its uncanny way back, while haunting my mind with the echoes of my regrets.

and i hate myself for it.
because i'm in this whirlpool of constant unhappiness.
spinning and spinning and spinning.
always returning to the same point.

how could i not?