lovesick (2025)

A piece about visibility. There’s pride in my type of visibility—not vanity. I am vain in a literal sense- I very much care how things look and want them to look nice; but my visibility doesn’t stem from that. My confidence is less heard and more seen and sensed. Walking into a room full of new people, I have consistently noticed people visibly relax once I open my mouth to speak and they realize that, I'm actually super kind. When I was in elementary school, I remember realizing that for whatever reason, I was much more noticeable than my other friends-- and not in a good way. That put a target on my little 7 year old back. I'm 30 at the time of writing this, and have healed enough to understand that if you're pulling someone's attention and they don't even know why, they will usually respond with ire. With a latent type of resentment. With whatever they can subconsciously weaponize against me, because I truly don't think most people realize they're even doing it. My confidence was built as best shield; the very foundation of my sense of self preservation. I molded it from scratch, with my own voice and my own hands. I was never going to be generally ignored, there was nothing I could do about that. But I knew there would be a way to build some type of wall between myself and other people's projections- and I absolutely did.