Do Not Rename This Darkness

I live in my head more than I admit.
There’s a whole world in there — and it isn’t gentle. I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes inside my own mind. When I’m scared, I still retreat there. It’s familiar. Even when it’s frightening.

When you grow up with someone who would kill your baby pet in front of you, something inside you breaks in a very specific way. You start wondering if that was meant for you. You learn early that love can vanish without warning. Being thrown away becomes one of the first languages you understand.

So when things shift, I don’t just notice — I panic.

I get scared. I blame myself. I assume I did something wrong.

I thought I asked for one thing: don’t let me go quiet. Don’t leave me alone inside my own head. At least I thought I did.

In the beginning, I heard: we’re going to be besties. We’re going to have so much fun. We’re going to build something together. And for weeks, it felt intense and real and alive.

Then I started to notice the withdrawal.

And I know my face can’t hide what I feel. When something grows in me, it shows. I don’t do subtle well when it comes to care.

When I began to express that, I was warned. I was told I only have “now.” I tried to understand that. I really did.

And then you left.

No return. No clarity. Just absence.

My alarm system went off immediately. The one that learned long ago that quiet means danger. It tells me to pull back. To stay silent. To brace for impact. So I’ve been saying very little to anyone lately. I’m in defense mode.

I wish I could talk to someone who cared enough to actually want to know what’s happening in my head — not to diagnose it, not to weaponize it, just to understand it.

Instead, it turned. I expressed how I felt and suddenly my feelings were the problem. My timing was the problem. My mind was the problem. The spotlight swung onto me, and somehow they became the victim while I felt guilty for being honest.

My sense of time is warped — trauma does that — but I know what felt immediate. I know what felt real.

And now it’s sour.

It’s not what I wanted. But I also can’t keep letting people kick me down the road like I’m something that doesn’t bruise.

I’m not a rock.

I feel.

I bruise.

I cry.

And it seems like the world often preys on the ones who are kind, the ones who give second chances, the ones who keep hoping this time it will be different.

I don’t want to harden.

But I also don’t want to keep breaking.

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