Alone In Us

I carry an ache                                                                
For how much time I spent
Trying to fit
Into friendships
That changed
With time.

I kept showing up
As quieter versions of myself
Filing down my edges
Until I became someone
Easy to be around
Never too much
Trying not to be inconvenient.

I confused silence
With loyalty.

I thought if I adjusted enough
If I translated myself
Into something more acceptable
If I shrank my needs
Until they barely existed
They might finally see me
As someone worth keeping.

So I learned to fade.

I laughed when it didn’t feel right.
I let things slide
Before they even had a chance
To hurt properly.
I called it understanding
When it was really
Abandoning myself.

There were moments
I almost chose me.

But I swallowed it.

Again.
And again.
And again.

Because hope
Can be quietly deceptive
Building stories
Out of maybe
Out of one day
Out of the idea
That they might meet me
Where I stood.

They never did.

And I kept tending
To spaces
That were never meant
To hold me.

I regret
How long it took me to see
That friendship
Shouldn’t cost you
Yourself.

That belonging
Isn’t something
You earn
By becoming smaller.

That I wasn’t “too much”
I was simply
In the wrong place
To be fully received.

I look back
At every version of me
That stayed.

Every small compromise
That chipped away
At who I was.

Every time I doubted myself
Because it was easier
To believe
I was the problem.