Trigger Warning:
This piece contains references to sexual assault, self-harm, and disordered eating. Please read with care.

⸻

Does everyone feel this soul-sucking pain?
Is it a part of being in your twenties?
Will my thirties be filled with less agony?
Does the pain grow larger as we do?

Will these growing pains last forever?

First, my knees—
my grandmother would rub them at night
until the ache faded.

Then, my stomach—
from years of hunger,
starving myself before I was even thirteen.

Then, my wrists—
as the shower hit my fresh wounds,
stinging worse than any bite.

My heart,
after a first breakup.

My soul,
when I was raped at sixteen.

My liver,
my lungs,
from all this self-medicating.

Now all I feel is loneliness.

Lonely,
when I have no one to share this life with.
Lonely,
when I go almost an entire day
without hearing my own voice.
Lonely,
when I look in the mirror
and no longer recognize the face staring back at me.

Where did she go?
The version of me
who was full of light and love?

Will she ever return?

-May 28th 2025