Alone

I am not alone,

yet the night inside me howls

like it’s never known a voice.

I sit surrounded by love

by proof, by presence, by people who care

and still I feel like I’m sinking

through the cracks of my own chest.

There are hands reaching for me,

but my bones feel heavy,

as if loneliness has weight,

as if it’s something I carry in my blood

instead of something that can be set down.

I know I am loved.

That truth doesn’t vanish in the dark.

It stands there, unflinching,

watching me unravel.

And somehow that makes the pain sharper

because how do you explain an emptiness

that survives kindness?

This isn’t the loneliness of being forgotten.

It’s the loneliness of being seen

and still feeling misunderstood.

Of being held

while your mind is a battlefield

no one else can hear.

I smile so no one worries.

I nod when they tell me I’m strong.

But strength feels like another mask,

and I am tired of wearing things

that don’t let me breathe.

There are nights I feel fractured

not broken, just split

one half soaking in love,

the other dissolving into doubt,

wondering why comfort doesn’t always comfort,

why warmth doesn’t always reach the cold.

And in my darkest moments,

hope doesn’t arrive as light.

It doesn’t roar or rescue.

It whispers.

It sits quietly at the edge of my pain

and waits for me to notice

that it hasn’t left.

Hope is the reason I’m still here

even when I feel hollow.

It’s the reason I let people stay

even when I want to disappear.

It’s the small, stubborn voice that says:

You don’t have to understand this feeling

to survive it.

Maybe healing isn’t the absence of darkness.

Maybe it’s learning how to exist

while carrying it.

Maybe love isn’t meant to fix me

maybe it’s meant to anchor me

so I don’t drift too far into myself.

So I stand in this in-between place

not okay, not hopeless

learning that loneliness can lie,

that it can scream even when love is louder,

that it doesn’t get the final word.

One day, I will let the love sink deeper.

One day, I will believe that support doesn’t need me

to be whole first.

Until then, I will keep breathing through the dark,

keep reaching even when my hands shake,

keep trusting that this ache

is not the end of my story.

Because if hope can survive

in a heart this tired,

then maybe

just maybe

so can I.