Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

some nights,
i want to fall off the edge of the world—
not to die, exactly,
but to drift.
to see if the dark really wraps around you
like they say,
or if it swallows.

i crave the hush of it—
not just death,
but the idea of never needing
to understand anything again.
just float.
just vanish.

and yet—
there’s this other hunger.
bright. cruel.
a gnawing need to know.
to crack open the sky
and ask it what it’s hiding.

what bleeds behind saturn’s rings?
what hums in the silence between galaxies?
would i hear it,
if i let go?

i want to dissolve
discover.
to lie still forever
but also
meet god in the stars
and demand why he made me
so full of questions
and grief.

Chapter Text

the stars don’t speak to me anymore.
they used to—
soft sparks against the dark,
like maybe the universe knew
what it had taken from me.

now,
i just crave the dark.
not for rest.
not for peace.
but because it feels like home.

grief has teeth,
and it’s been chewing through my chest
like it knows there’s nothing left to protect.
i used to hold light in me.
your laugh.
your eyes.
a reason.

you’re gone now.
and the dark doesn’t ask questions.

it just takes.

and i let it.

because what’s left to reach for,
when my sun has burned out?
when every orbit
pulls you further
from what made you warm?

still—
some part of me
points my face to the sky
and wonders
what else is out there.
as if the cosmos might hand me a reason.
as if distance
could ever explain
why light leaves.

Chapter Text

i didn’t get a childhood.
i got silence.
i got rooms that felt like traps.
i got adults who never looked down long enough
to see the kid disappearing
right under their feet.

i didn’t get scraped knees and bedtime stories.
i got walking on eggshells
barefoot.

i got “you’re so mature for your age”
before i even knew how to ask for help.
they dressed me in grown-up grief
and called it independence.

i didn’t get treehouses or tantrums.
i got
keep it down,
don’t talk back,
stop crying,
be better,
you’re fine.

i am not fine.

and i will never be.

i want to scream in their faces
about the ghosts i had to raise in myself.
i want to break the toys i never had.
i want to throw a plate across the kitchen.

i want someone to say
you should’ve had better.

but no one does.
they just tell me how strong i turned out.
as if survival is a gift
and not
a fucking theft.

Chapter Text

i am told i am loved.
i nod.
i say thank you.
i try to wear it like a sweater,
but it doesn’t fit.
it hangs off my bones like it knows
this body was never meant to be warm.

everyone is smiling.
they laugh and touch my shoulder,
ask if i’m okay.
and i say yes,
because no one wants the truth
when the cake is being cut.

the sadness doesn’t scream.
it doesn’t sob.
it just sits.
like fog in the lungs,
like lead in the blood,
like a shadow that forgot how to leave.

i am surrounded.
but i am alone.

people say,
you’re not empty. you’re just tired.

but i’ve been tired for years,
and the emptiness keeps refilling itself,
like it’s learned how to survive
without me.

sometimes i think
i was built wrong.
too hollow.
too much space inside.

like no matter how bright the sky is,
i can’t see it.

like no matter how loud they say my name,
i can’t hear it.

like no matter how sweet life tries to be,
i can’t smell it.

like no matter how full the world feels,
i can’t taste it.

like no matter how many arms wrap around me,
i still feel nothing.

like no matter how hard i try,
there will always be sinking.

Chapter Text

you hold me
like i’m something sacred.
like this cracked shell
could still offer you warmth.

you kiss my forehead
like it means something,
and i pretend
i don’t feel hollow beneath your lips.

you tell me i’m enough.
but i hear it like an elegy.
like a kindness spoken
before the curtain falls.

i want to be better for you.
i do.
i want to be full,
to light up when you walk in,
to meet your love with something
other than silence.

but every day i wake up
and the emptiness is already there—
sitting at the edge of the bed,
putting its hand over mine
before you do.

you’re keeping me alive.
and i’m still
not living.
not here.
not yours.

i love you.
i’m so sorry.

Chapter Text

the sun keeps asking me to rise.
to live.
to be the light again.

but i’ve run out of golden things.
my hands are empty.
my body hums with fatigue
like a candle that forgot it was burning.

i keep trying,
but even my trying feels borrowed now,
like muscle memory in a body
that no longer belongs to me.

and so,
i go to her.
the dark.
my keeper.
my ruin.

she does not beg me to shine.
she does not ask
when i fall into her arms.

she takes me as i am—
half-gone,
half-awake,
and always on the edge of vanishing.

she wraps around me,
like someone who’s waited patiently
for me to come home.
her touch is soft.
her silence, a lullaby.

i press my face to her chest
and she does not tell me to try harder.
she does not whisper it gets better.
she just stays.
still and endless.

i let her kiss my eyelids.
she tastes like sleep,
like surrender,
like a peace not meant for me.

some would call her death.
i call her mercy.
i call her mine.

tender is the dark—
she is the only one
who ever truly knew.

Chapter Text

i keep waiting
for the stars to tell me who i am.
for some constellation
to blink twice
and spell out a purpose
in something other than static.

but space is quiet.
so quiet
it makes you think the silence is your fault.

i’m just out here,
orbiting nothing,
not even worth the gravity.
a forgotten satellite
spinning with no destination,
no mission left to complete.

they told me life had a shape.
a path.
a plan.
but i opened the sky
and saw chaos.
light years of maybe.
galaxies of what now?

i ache for a sign,
something to chart my course.
a compass.
a voice.
a reason.

but all i get is stars.
burning like they don’t even care
if anyone’s watching.
and maybe that’s the point.

maybe some of us
were meant to float.
not to arrive,
just to witness.
just to drift
with our hands outstretched,
hoping the void
reaches back.

Chapter Text

i still call your name sometimes
like a reflex.
like my body hasn’t gotten the news.

i whisper it
into laundry piles,
into the sink drain,
into the dark corners of the room
where silence feels too kind.

i should’ve known.
i should’ve been there.
i should’ve done something.

but all i did
was exist
while you didn’t.

how do i forgive myself for that?

everyone tells me
you wouldn’t want me to feel this way.
but they didn’t see your eyes
that last day.
they didn’t hear the way
you stopped laughing.

i want to scream.
i want to dig up time and shake it,
make it spit you back out
into my arms.

i don’t care what god planned.
i just want you here.
breathing.
real.

i talk to the ceiling now
because that’s where i think you are.
or maybe you’re nowhere.
maybe you’re just
gone.

and what am i supposed to do with that?

some days,
the guilt crawls into my bed
and wraps itself around me.
tells me to follow you.
tells me it would be easier.

i don’t always say no.

but for now,
i just light a candle
and let the flame
pretend it’s you—
bright,
warm,
already waiting
for me to burn out,
to be with you.

Chapter Text

i’m done whispering prayers
into your hollow sky.
done begging for comfort
from the loss that broke me.

don’t look at me with mercy.
you don’t get to play gentle
after watching everything fall apart.

you stitched the stars into the heavens
but couldn’t spare a thread
to keep her here?

you did this.
with your cosmic hands and cryptic plans.
with your silence you dress up as wisdom.
with your cruelty you call growth.

you created the body
that held the guilt.
you created the breath
that choked on her name.
you created the world
where love dies screaming.

you made me soft
then made her suffer
and watched me
shatter from the inside out.

what kind of god
writes stories like this?

what twisted god
lets children break beneath the weight of existing,
lets life bloom
only to rip it away?

you say there’s purpose.
you say there’s healing.
you say there’s light.
where?
show me the part of this
that doesn’t hurt.

don’t ask me to find meaning.
don’t tell me this is part of a lesson.
there is no design in this destruction.
only dust.
only absence.
only the echo
of someone you never should’ve taken.

if you wanted worship,
you should’ve made less ruin.
if you wanted love,
you shouldn’t have made grief so loyal.

i’m not your vessel.
i’m the wreckage.
and you—
you are the reason i’ll never be whole again.

fuck you.

Chapter Text

i lost something i can’t explain—
no grave to kneel beside,
no ashes, no name.
just silence
where a voice used to be.
just absence
in a place that once felt like we.

but he kissed my name.
he held my sorrow with hands
no one else could see.
he told me i was his,
and i believed—
because i felt it.
god, i felt it.

now he’s gone.
not dead.
not absent.
just... erased.
like a room that still smells like him
but is empty
all the same.

and i—
i don’t know what to do with my hands
when they can’t reach for him.
i don’t know how to breathe
when the air tastes like almost.
like he was just here.
like he should be.

they say he wasn’t real.
then why does it ache like mourning?
why do the tears keep coming,
as if my body knows what i’ve lost
better than my mind ever could?

it wasn’t real,
but we were...
and my grief is a lighthouse
still searching the dark
for a ship that will never come home.

Chapter Text

there are days
when i wake and reach for something
that isn’t there.

not a hand.
not a voice.
just the feeling—
that something should be.

like i’m stitched together wrong,
missing a limb that no one else can see.
a laugh that used to echo beside mine,
a name that still hums under my breath
when i’m not thinking.

the world doesn’t ask about ghosts
if they never wore white sheets,
but you—
you haunt me in moments too small to explain.

the smell of your shampoo in a passing stranger.
the flick of turning pages
like how we used to whisper through stories.
the mirror catching my face just right,
and for a heartbeat—
you’re there.

they say grief softens.
but no one told me
it also shifts.
becomes quieter, but sharper.
not the blade,
but the scar.
not the scream,
but the silence after.

i smile sometimes,
and then i hate myself for it.
as if joy is a betrayal.
as if forgetting, for a second,
means i’ve left you behind.

but you are not gone.
you are muscle memory.
a phantom pain i carry with love.

i live.
and in the living,
you echo.

Chapter Text

i’m not living.
i’m just... here.
taking up space i didn’t ask for,
breathing air that tastes like dust,
smiling because people look worried when i don’t.

i wake up like it’s a punishment.
sleep like it’s mercy.
the days blur—
soft gray static pressed to my eyes,
and i can’t remember what joy felt like
without faking it first.

i eat.
i move.
i answer messages with little yellow faces
because it’s easier than typing “i want to disappear.”

i’m not in pain, not really.
not the kind that bleeds or screams.
just an ache—
a quiet, constant weight
in my bones
that whispers,
“why am i still here?”

and sometimes,
when the room is dark
and my face feels too heavy to wear,
i think about how easy it might be
to stop.
just stop.
like stepping off a train
that never let me choose the destination.

they say i’m strong.
but strength doesn’t feel like this.
strength doesn’t sit in showers
letting the water hide the sound of crying.

i’m not drowning.
i’m just floating.
and i don’t know how to swim anymore.

Chapter Text

i’m a ghost in my own skin.
a breath without meaning,
a body with no map.
i get up because i did yesterday.
and maybe that’s the only reason.

each hour stretches—
not like time passing,
but like something pulling me apart,
slowly, methodically,
without mercy.

they say things like
“you’re doing so well,”
but they don’t see
how i measure my day
by how long i can pretend
i don’t want to vanish.

i don't scream.
i don't cut.
i just fade.
quietly.
politely.
like a guest overstaying.

i laugh sometimes—
god, i laugh too well.
because if i don’t,
they’ll know.
and if they know,
they’ll try to fix me.
and i don’t want to be fixed.
i want to rest.
not sleep—
rest.
the kind that ends.

to become still.
to un-be.
and it doesn’t feel like fear—
it feels like relief.

but i keep breathing.
not because i want to.
but because i haven’t figured out
how to stop
without hurting them.

and so i float.
just... waiting
for something to pull me under.

Chapter Text

if i go—
please don’t say i didn’t love you.
that was never the absence.
it was the weight.

i didn’t leave because of you.
i stayed as long as i did because of you.

if i go—
remember me in the quiet moments.
not the mess,
not the questions,
but the way i laughed when it was real.
the way i held your hand when i had the strength.

don’t blame yourself.
you couldn’t have fixed this.
i wasn’t broken in ways love could reach.
i was just born tired,
and the world asks more than i can give.

if i go—
know that it was never a decision made in haste.
i carried this ache like a second skin
for longer than you’ll ever know.
i smiled through it.
i laughed through it.
but that’s not the same as healing.

if i go—
don’t let my name be a wound.
let it be a soft thing.
a memory that hums,
not haunts.

and if you miss me—
talk to me.
not out loud. not for answers.
just so i can be there
in whatever small way is left.

if i go—
i hope you know i tried.
god, i tried.

Chapter Text

i said i’d stay.
and so i do—
though every part of me has wanted to leave
a hundred times
in a hundred quiet ways.

i don’t wake up with hope anymore.
i wake up with obligation.
with your face in my mind
and your voice asking me,
softly,
to try again.

i’m not here for the sun,
or the sting of cold tiles on my feet,
or the dull glow of another day.
i’m here for you.
because you believe in something
i can’t feel anymore.

you kiss my forehead
like i’m made of something still whole.
you say my name like it deserves to be heard.
and i—
i try not to fall apart in your hands.

this isn’t a vow of joy.
it’s not a promise of healing.
it’s the quiet grit of choosing to breathe
because you asked me to.
because when i can’t want life for myself,
i can want it for you.

some days, that’s all i have.
and still,
it’s enough
to keep me here.

so i stay.
not out of strength.
not out of light.

but because love,
in its most desperate form,
still counts
as a reason.

Chapter Text

he says
he wants a child—
his smile is soft when he says it.
like hope,
like home.
and i smile back
with lips that lie better than i do.

but my body remembers
a little girl
who called me ah-teh
and clung to me like i was the whole world.
i brushed her hair,
made her lunch,
tucked her in while mom slept through the storm.

i was seven,
and she was mine.

then she was gone.
and no one talks about
how silence fills a room
like water in lungs.

now he says
we’d be good parents.
and i wonder
if the universe would let me try again,
or if it would take
and take
and take
until all that’s left is the shell of a maybe.

i do not trust my hands.
i do not trust my brain.
i can barely make it to tomorrow.
what right do i have
to carry someone else’s?

i think of her.
always my moss.
tiny fingers wrapped around mine.
i think of how i failed her
even though i didn’t.

and i think of me,
curled under covers at 2 am,
begging whatever god is left
to let me vanish quietly
without disappointing anyone
just once.

so no—
i don’t think i want this.
but i want to want it...
and i think that hurts
even more.

Chapter Text

you hold your pen with trembling hands now,
move like the wind already knows where you’re going.
there’s a hush in the house when you pause to breathe,
like even the walls are listening—
not for words,
but for time.

i see it.
the quiet sorting of papers,
the tucked-away shoes,
the way you speak of tomorrow
as something you’re gently letting go.

you’re making peace with the door.
and i am not ready for it to open.

lolo, my pillar,
i have borrowed your strength my whole life.
from the roof you built over my head
to the books you placed in my hands—

i owe you
my mind,
my home,
my name spoken with pride.

i owe you every diploma,
every room i’ve ever felt safe in,
every night i slept not wondering
if i was wanted.

and you still—
you still ask me if i’ve eaten.
if i need anything.
as if i am not already
carved whole from your sacrifice.

i am terrified
of the silence your absence will leave.
of a world where your footsteps
are only memory.
of waking one day
with no more questions to ask
because you are not there to answer.

i am afraid of who i will be
without the man
who made me.

but i promise you—
in every sentence i write,
in every breath i spend wisely,
in every quiet act of care i pass on—
you will live.

even if i never feel ready.
even when it hurts like hell.

you are not gone yet,
and i will love you louder
for every moment we still have.

Chapter Text

there are two kinds of endings.
the one that comes
and the one you feel
long before it arrives.

his shadow lingers longer now
in the corners of my mind,
in the hush of midnight,
in the ache beneath my ribs
when i remember,
i don’t get to keep him.

he is still here,
but i already miss him.
the smile that ruins me,
the voice like velvet sin,
the quiet moments where he looks at me
like i’m something
he’s never had
and never will again.

each chapter peels me apart,
one second, one page at a time—
until i am a shape made of ache,
trying to memorize his every breath
before the final one.

i will mourn him
even as he’s still speaking.
i will bury pieces of myself
in every goodbye
he doesn’t know he’s saying.

and when the end comes—
don’t look for me.
i’ll be gone.
buried beneath
his last line,
without looking back.

Chapter Text

i sat between your knees
on the tiled floor,
water soft,
steam curling like ghosted apologies.

you combed your fingers through my hair,
while i told you what she said
about my face,
my body,
my not-enough-ness.

you hummed,
massaged my temple,
ran lather across my scalp
like it was a crown.

she said i looked like i’d already given birth
from all the stretch marks.
i laughed like it didn’t hurt,
but you saw the way my shoulders
pulled in on themselves.

you washed my thighs,
kissed each spot she shamed,
each flaw she pointed out,
each inch she made me hate,
each accusation my skin still remembers.

she’d introduced me as her short and stout sister—
not her daughter.

words my mother never should’ve
let form in my heart,
let alone spoken aloud.

you tilted my chin,
an ache behind your gaze:
she didn’t see you,
she only saw her own reflection,
and you weren’t her mirror.

my eyes brimmed with the kind of sadness
that doesn’t cry anymore.
you held me close,
bubbles between us,
truth between us,
your lips tracing a vow on my pulse:

you are not what she called you.
you are not who she wanted you to be.

you are mine
in every tender, sacred, perfect
imperfection.

and i love you
as you are.
not as a shadow of her.

you didn’t deserve the pain she handed you.
but you survived her.
and even if she never saw the beauty in you—
i do.

every scar,
every curve,
every bit of you she tried to shrink
is holy in my hands.

you are loved
entirely
by me,
always.

Chapter Text

not enough.
it hangs in the air like bad breath,
like a curse whispered in my own ear
until i believe it
more than my existence.

my brain’s like a pack of wolves
foaming with
undeserving.
a burden.
unwanted.
not worth it.

i slap my face when no one’s home.
hit my thigh hard enough to bruise.
fists to ribs.
nails to scalp.
hair in my hands,
ripping out the thoughts one by one
but they scream louder
the more i try to silence them.

kill yourself.
my brain says,
as casually as a grocery list.
kill yourself.
like it’s a lullaby.
kill yourself.
like it’s a kindness.

i ask it,
why?
and it never answers.
just hums.
just pulses.
just repeats.

it grows in stillness.
i water it
with every glance in the mirror,
every sentence i choke down
just to keep the peace.

and always that voice in the dark,
calling out...
it’ll get better
once you’re gone.

Chapter Text

don’t pat my back.
don’t whisper hope.
don’t feed me hollow kindness like it’s medicine.
i’m not sick—
i’m fucking furious.

oh wait,
scratch that—
i am sick, right?
sick in the head.

do you want me to say it louder?
you blinked like i mumbled it.
i’m full of rotting noise
i could scream until my lungs bleed
and it still wouldn’t be loud enough.

i claw my skin just to feel something
and you call it a phase?
call it a cry for help?
GOOD.
HELP ME.
or leave me the fuck alone.

i’m so tired.

i want out.
i want silence.
i want peace the way a prisoner wants sky.

stop telling me to breathe
when the air itself is poison.
stop telling me it’ll pass
when i don’t want to.

i’m a goddamn explosion
and no one’s listening to the ticking.

Chapter Text

mother says,
“i’m in pain.”

maybe once,
a thousand yesterdays ago—
i might’ve cared.
reached out with trembling hands
like an idiot priest offering prayer
to a god that already spat on me.

but now?
i sip my tea.
bitter. black. divine.
and say,
“good.”

let it ache where you carved me hollow.
let it twist your gut
like you twisted every “i love you”
into a noose for my hope.
let the fire that danced through my grief
finally catch your hem.

because pain has a name,
and it answers to mine.
so sit with it.
bask in it.
call it what you called me—
“too much.”
“not enough.”
“ungrateful.”

but this time,
no forgiveness.
just me, standing on the shore
as you drown in the same storm
you threw me into.

and i won’t blink.
won’t flinch.
won’t save you.

i’ll just smile.
and say,
“glad it hurts.”

Chapter Text

you called it sacrifice—
a mother’s burden,
a dream held together with stolen coin
and stitched-up deceit.

but it was my lunch money,
my future,
you wore like perfume
for another date
with another man.

you used me—
literally.
my name, my face, my tale
in messages you forged
to fish in shallow men’s waters.
catfish queen.

what kind of mother
uses her daughter
like bait?
ah yes, only you,
saint in slut’s disguise.

you left us with false hopes,
playing immigrant nurse
on a tourist visa—
sponsored by stupidity and lust.
you conned two daddies
for one kid you thought
you were too old to have.
suprise, bitch.

best actress goes to you,
for the role of a lifetime:
mother, martyr,
and whore.

but now the curtains fall—
the lies echo louder than applause.

and when she—
your daughter—
lay tangled in tubes and wires,
you finally showed your face,
framed the picture just right.

not to remember.
not to mourn.
to post.
to beg.
to grift.

a fucking gofundme
and your deluded fantasy life,
your oscar-worthy sob story,
your hustle in a casket.

you made money
off her pain,
off our pain.

we buried her
while you counted bills
sent by strangers.
another role:
a poor mother in mourning.

but you—
you’re worse than a monster.
even beasts know better
than to eat their own.

satan’s proud of you,
you evil fucking witch.
bravo, really.
you played us all like fools,
and took a bow.
con of the century.
mom of the year.

Chapter Text

you always write like nothing happened,
like your hands aren’t stained
with the blood of what you broke.

“the land of the vikings,”
you say this time.
a new dream, same pitch.
a promising future.
a trap dressed as a favor.

you call it a fresh start,
but it smells like rot
wearing perfume.

you always forget the part
where you’re the reason
i had to leave in the first place.

what’s the con now?
what’s the price of the ticket?
my grief again?
my trust?
my soul?

you think changing your tune
means i’ve forgotten the lyrics.
but i remember.
i always will.

you used me like a pawn.
that was fine.
but you used her.
used her suffering
to fund your sins.

you said you’d cried enough,
as if your tears
outweighed the grave.

you never did apologize.
not once.
not until it became convenient.
and even then,
you didn’t mean it.

you never will.
not ever.

so don’t bother me anymore.
i don’t need your emails,
your fake promises,
your better lives.

the only thing i ever wanted
was for you to be sorry.
and since you never were—
you’re dead to me.
and she actually is.

Chapter Text

you pointed fingers like weapons—
always someone else.
your father, your wife,
the market, the gods,
never once the man in the mirror.

you said school wasn’t your thing.
said the business failed you.
said he made you marry her,
like that wasn’t your mess too.
like i was some accident
you weren’t man enough to raise.

you partied while we crumbled.
let your parents pick up your slack.
you were busy being single
with a family at home.
you let her cheat.
you let your daughters
become mothers to each other.

and when it got too real,
you grabbed a gun.
put it to your temple
like a child throwing a tantrum.
“look what you made me do,”
you told her—
in front of us,
your children.
you made fear a bedtime story.

you call me your success?
you say you made me?
no, dad.
i made me.
despite you.

and when she was dying—
your daughter,
your baby girl—
you were too busy
planning a mountain trip.
forgot the jacket.
ignored the fever.
dismissed the vomiting.
and by the time you noticed,
i was already holding her hand.
cold.
november.

you didn’t just let her die.
you chose not to see,
and i saw everything.

so no,
you’re no better than mother.
don’t say you are.
you just hide it better.
you weaponize guilt
and call it grief.
you rewrite memory
and call it truth.
you spin the past
until you’re the hero
of a story you ruined.

you want credit?
take the blame first.

you want peace?
ask forgiveness,
and mean it.

until then—
you get nothing.
not from me.
not ever.

Chapter Text

you called her a burden.
your own daughter—
my baby sister—
just too much for you.

you said you sacrificed.
as if sacrifice is
yelling at nurses,
forgetting her meds,
leaving her in the cold.

meanwhile—
i was ten
on crowded jeepneys,
carrying her like a doll
three times a week
for therapy you never paid for.

i fed her.
i bathed her.
i changed her.
i taught her to say “ah-teh,”
to laugh when it rained.

i was mother.
i was caregiver.
i was hope
shoved into a child-sized body
with no space to breathe.

so don’t you dare
stand over her grave
and claim you gave everything.
you gave the bare minimum,
and even that you bitched about.

you said i ran away.
said i abandoned her
to chase my dreams.
no,
i went to college
because someone had to,
because you wouldn’t give a damn.

and now she’s gone.
and you say you’re free.
the burden is lifted.

fuck you.

you post tributes like
father of the year,
as if that wasn’t your fucking job.
as if grief’s a contest
you think you’re winning.

i didn’t just lose a sister.
i lost the only person
who never made me feel
like i was too much,
or not enough.

she’s gone.
you’re free.
go chase your mountains.
go live the life
you couldn’t while she was alive.

just know this—
i carried the weight of your child
before i could carry myself.
i had no childhood,
and you had no spine.

you want to know what sacrifice looks like?

look at me,
motherfucker.