Jealousy doesn’t make me loud.
It makes me small.
It sits in my chest and convinces me that if I were prettier, softer, easier to love, this wouldn’t hurt so much. It replays every moment I wasn’t chosen and asks what I could have done differently, even when I know the answer is nothing.
Then the anger hits.
Sharp and humiliating.
I’m angry at them for never choosing me when it mattered. Angry at myself for accepting almost. Angry that I keep confusing attention with love because no one ever taught me what safe love looks like.
And the confusion is suffocating.
I don’t know if I want them, or if I just want to stop feeling replaceable. I don’t know if I miss their presence, or the fantasy where I finally mattered. I don’t know how to walk away from someone I was never really allowed to have.
I hate what jealousy turns me into. Someone who waits. Someone who compares. Someone who stays quiet so I don’t ask for too much.
The worst part isn’t that they didn’t choose me.
It’s that they never had to.
And somehow, I stayed anyway.
You have someone to fall back on. I have the floor.