Swipe Left On Perfection

I was taught
to be a good girl.
soft voice, small needs,
apologizing for the space
my body took up in a room.

I learned early
that being liked
was safer than being real.
That love
was something you earned
by bending first,
breaking later,
bleeding quietly.

I thought
if I was understanding enough,
forgiving enough,
low-maintenance enough,
no one would leave.

So I let them cross lines
I never even drew.
Didn’t have the language
for “boundary,”
only for “it’s okay”
and “don’t worry about it”
and “I’m fine”
while my stomach twisted
like it was trying
to crawl out of my body.

I have made
so many mistakes
in the name of love.

I’ve stayed too long.
I’ve chased.
I’ve begged silently
to be seen
by people who didn’t even
know how to look.
I’ve chosen the same lesson
in a different body
over and over,
as if pain would finally
mean something different
if I memorized it well enough.

And still,
I am not innocent in my hurt.
I have lied to myself.
I have ignored my own red flags,
painted them white,
called it hope.
I have broken my own heart
by handing it
to people who never asked for it
and then blaming them
when they didn’t know
how to hold it.

I know everything now,
and I still know nothing.

I can list attachment styles,
trauma responses,
communication tools.
I can name the pattern
before it even happens –
feel that familiar nausea,
that sick drop in my stomach
when I sense myself
shrinking again.

Growth feels like surgery
without anesthesia:
cutting out beliefs
that kept me alive once
but are killing me now.
It hurts so much
I could scream.
and sometimes I do,
quietly, into a pillow,
into poetry,
into the mirror.

But I am not
that “good girl” anymore.

I am learning to say no
without explaining it to death.
To say yes
only when my body
doesn’t flinch.
To let someone be disappointed
and not sprint after them
with a bandaid and an apology.

I am not easy
to swallow anymore,
and that’s the point.

My voice shakes,
but it’s still my voice.
My hands tremble,
but they still draw the line.
I’m finally meeting
the version of me
I buried
under everyone else’s comfort-
and she is loud,
and she is flawed,
and she is beautiful
in ways that have nothing
to do with being chosen.

Growing truly hurts.
It makes me sick to my stomach.
It rips up the script
I spent my whole life rehearsing.

But I would not go back.
Not for love,
not for approval,
not for the safety
of being ignorantly small.

I know everything
and I still know nothing.
but at least now,
I belong
to myself.