I am losing my sense of self,
like watching a photograph fade in water—
the face I knew dissolving,
the edges slipping away
until all that remains is a blur
I can’t quite name.

And in that blur,
I am cruel to myself
in ways no one else could be.
I know exactly where to press,
where the bone is thinnest,
where a single word can crack
the delicate beams holding me up.
My own voice becomes a blade,
whispering I am nothing,
that I am noise and shadow
and half-formed ache.

But tonight—
I hold that cruelty gently,
like a shard of glass found in my chest.
I turn it in my hands,
see myself reflected in the sharpness,
and whisper,
You don’t have to cut yourself open
to prove you’re alive.

I am losing who I was,
a little more each day,
but I am all I have to carry through the dark.
So I will be kinder to myself,
even if it feels unnatural,
even if the tenderness trembles in my throat
like a frightened animal.

I smooth my own hair back,
press my palm to the frantic flutter
under my sternum,
and say,
It’s okay.
Even if you don’t know who you are,
you still deserve gentleness.

Because the truth is brutal and simple:
no one has ever hurt me
the way I have hurt myself—
but no one else can save me either.

So I will learn to cradle the fading parts,
to gather the fragments with steady hands,
to be soft with the girl
who is still trying to find her shape.

I am losing myself—
yes—
but I will not abandon
what remains.