Love is wanting to spend hours talking to someone on the phone until you both fall asleep. It’s wanting to tell someone how your day was without judgment. It’s being able to do your own thing but also having the company of someone right by your side. It’s smiling every time you hear their name, or laughing when they’ve done something ridiculous. Love is noticing that they laugh when things are rough, or get quiet in a crowded room when they’re lost in thought. Love is love, and it’s unexpected and undefined.

— 

It’s not that I’m sad. It’s that I don’t understand how I feel, and that’s the most frustrating part of it all. It’s exhaustion. It’s the fight between doing everything I can in a day and doing nothing at all. It’s working so I can keep myself alive and afloat while making sure my name stays on the dean’s list every semester. It’s the feeling of happiness, but only lasting for a happy moment and not reflecting anywhere else. I’ll settle for it—a glimpse of smiling for two hours and feeling indifferent about the rest. Fighting to keep thoughts aligned but just for them to end up winding down the wrinkles in my brain.

Do everything.

Do nothing.

Do something.

But I don’t want to. It doesn’t matter; I need to. It’s the fight between taking care of myself or at least pretending to—just make sure no one worries. Not wanting them to worry because I know everyone has their own battles in their head. But why does my head race and my body feel empty?

— 

I’m just asking you questions, why are you crying? I cannot understand a single thought racing through my head, let alone yours. You brought me into this world; you are supposed to take care of me. Yet, sitting here, I’m at a loss for words.

Thank you for teaching me independence.

Thank you for teaching me how to be strong.

Thank you for teaching me those things when I was ten years old instead of when I grew up.

No wonder I don’t feel like enough; useless was my nickname. Asking for help, only to be told no. Then being told, "We’ll be here for you no matter what." Tell me about how you disowned your parents and how you would do it with no hesitation. Different values, different lifestyles, but the same conversation I have had for the past seven years, and somehow everything I do is not enough to please you. Don’t tell me you love me because I know it’s a lie. And you can blame it on not having a sister, but who cares. I have been here for twenty years, and you still don’t know how to love your daughter.

What a shame.

— 

It’s hard loving someone with mental illness. I understand that. Watching them feel as if all the walls are closing in or that they’re not loved by all the people around them. Watching them drown in their own pool of lies told to themselves by messages from the brain. Watching them sink deeper into their beds, having no motivation to get up. Watching them push the people they love away from them so they don’t hurt them in the end. Listening to all the suicidal ideations spinning around in their head. Listening to the thoughts they speak out loud, trying to decipher all the background voices in their head. Feeling them shake as they try and calm themselves out of panic.

It is hard loving someone with mental illness, and it’s hard loving yourself when you are struggling with things that are not apparent to the common eye. You are so self-aware, and you’re still feeling helpless, and that’s the hardest thing to understand of all.

— 

The absence of you is like a never-ending day. Where I wait and wait for the sun, but the skies remain grey. You aren’t too far but not close enough. The next day, I long for your touch. Found rest in your soul, and comfort in your lips. Craving kisses that left me up until six.