INSIDE MY HEAD

I keep hearing two voices. One whispers soft, like it still believes I can be okay, the other… laughs, calls me stupid for even hoping. Sometimes I think I’m just a body walking— heart too heavy, eyes too tired. My smile is fake, but it’s the only thing people notice. Nobody ever asks why my pillow is always wet in the morning. They don’t know I write apologies on my skin with sharp things, that I keep my pain folded inside my chest like a letter I’ll never send. They don’t know how loud silence is at 2 a.m. when you’re wishing you could just disappear. I’ve been dropped before— my heart hit the floor so hard it still hasn’t stopped bleeding. Now I hold it myself, but my hands keep shaking, and I’m scared I’ll let it fall again. Some days… leaving feels easier than staying. That thought is warm and dangerous, like standing too close to a fire when you’re freezing. But there’s this other voice— small, stubborn— it says maybe the cracks in me are just places the light hasn’t found yet. It says maybe this pain is just a chapter and I’m the one who gets to write the ending. I don’t know if I believe it. But I’m still here. And that’s enough to piss off everyone who swore I wouldn’t be. — Daria Gloria