wanted. loved. accepted.

You know, I wish I could say I feel those words from my family and my friends. 

But I don’t. 

Almost the opposite.

One second I’m fine. Riding on Cloud 9.

The next, I’m back in the dust, cringing from the head rush from the fall.

I don’t feel like I am ever good enough for my parents.

You would like to think that once you are living on your own and out of their reach that you wouldn’t need to feel it anymore. 

But when it seems like you’re so alone in the world of new friends and few friends, you want that rock solid love you know you can depend on.

And I don’t have that.

So, I feel like I’m bipolar.

My mood swings are horrendous.

And at the end of the day, I swallow the lump in my throat and hug myself goodnight whispering, “it’s going to be okay, sweetheart.”

That very sentence I’ve been telling myself for years now.

I want someone to hold me close for a few seconds longer than normal and whisper that exact thing to me.

For a few seconds I feel like my mom loves me the way I am.

Then I get a phone call with yells on the other end that I keep messing up.

All of that just says to me, “You’re never good enough. How can you be so dumb, little girl?”

The few calls I get from my father all surround 3 things: music, money, and boys that I shouldn’t be dating.

Because when my dad left the house, I was only 13.

Because my dad still sees me that way.

Because my dad doesn’t even know me.

He doesn’t know my talents, my struggles, my friends, my thoughts and perspectives.

All he knows is that I am going to college and that I am dating guys that are never good enough.

How would he know if he doesn’t even ask about their personality? Only their stats.

Cause that’s what matters in the end, right?

Where you’re from.

What you do.

How much money you make.

What you look like.

So many people let that DEFINE them.

Least important things in my opinion.

Where is his heart?

How does he treat you?

What are his talents?

Never am I asked those questions.

Somedays, I feel like I have no strength to go on.

I’m put off. Placed on the back-burner. Forgotten.

Never good enough.

Good, but not quite there.

Yet, I’m so kind. Loyal. I listen. I give advice if needed. I care. Genuinely.

And I keep getting pushed. Shoved.

So I recede even deeper into the fractured shell I want to completely break.

But I have to keep rebuilding it after it’s been broken.

Because for a moment, I thought I could trust.

I thought someone absolutely had my back.

And then that moment ended.

So I become a passive pushover.

A dandelion in the wind, whose seeds are strewn across the earth with no home.

An annoying fly that whizzes away when you don’t want it there anymore.

Get the fly swatters out. I'll keep flying till my time is up.