Maybe This Time

There are some wounds that do not begin with one moment.

They begin in repetition.

In the feeling of not being reached for.

Not being comforted.

Not being protected.

Not being seen clearly enough or held long enough to believe that your needs are safe in someone else’s hands.

Sometimes those wounds become stories.

Sometimes they become patterns.

And sometimes they become ways of living inside the body.

For me, that pain did not only become emotional. It became physical. It shaped the way I related to my body, the way I tried to earn care, the way I learned to speak through silence, hunger, self-harm, and self-erasure when words did not seem to land.

This poem came from that place.

It came from the ache of trying to be seen.

From the grief of learning how early shame can take root.

From the reality of what it means to survive disconnection and then slowly, painfully, try to come back to yourself.

It also came from a different place too:

the place in me that is still here.

Still breathing.

Still trying to choose tenderness over punishment.

Still learning that my body is not my enemy.

Maybe This Time is about trauma, eating disorders, self-harm, chronic illness, and the long aftermath of being taught to abandon yourself. But it is also about the first fragile movements of repair. The moment when love does not yet feel natural, but the desire to stop hurting yourself finally becomes stronger than the old script.

So this is the poem.

Not because I have tied it up neatly.

Not because healing is finished.

But because truth deserves somewhere to live outside the body too.

“Maybe This Time”

I was born into silence.

Not the peaceful kind;

but the kind where warmth never quite reached me.

My mother didn’t want to make the same mistake twice,

so she decided to “toughen me up.”

She called it independence.

But it just felt like abandonment.

I cried for hours at my grandmother's house,

pressed my face to the storm door,

begging to be seen,

but even when she came,

she came with frustration

not comfort.

I learned early:

my needs make people angry.

So I stopped needing.

I swallowed the ache.

I wrapped silence around me like a second skin.

Then came the mirrors.

And the names.

And the boy on the playground

who puffed up his cheeks and made the whole group laugh.

Not at a joke;

at me.

I realized then:

they’ll never love you for who you are.

Only for how little space you take up.

Only for how easy you make it for them.

So I tried.

I starved my body.

I carved it.

I used it like a message,

a protest sign no one could ignore:

 “Maybe this time you’ll see me.”

Maybe this time you’ll care.

Maybe this time, if I’m sick enough, someone will say, “Are you okay?”

But they never came.

Not even the ones who should’ve.

My mother saw me with the blade once.

She took it from my hand,

walked out,

closed the door.

We never spoke about it again.

If that didn’t warrant love,

what would?

So I learned to speak with my body.

Since my words always fell on deaf ears, I turned my flesh into a flare

Carving lines to memorialize the pain no one wanted to hear.

Maybe this time they'll see.

Maybe this time they'll care.

Every skipped meal: a scream.

Every ache: a poem no one wanted to read.

Every drop of blood: an offering to numbness.

Because at least numbness didn’t leave.

And I hated her, this body.

Because everyone told me to.

I fed her shame.

I denied her softness.

I burned her at the altar of “enough.”

And now, only 33, she’s breaking.

Lupus. Fibromyalgia. PCOS.

Pain that shows up without knocking.

Systems that attack themselves.

Of course.

She’s just following my lead.

If I were a plant,

I’d have shriveled and died long ago.

But I didn’t.

I’m still here.

Still breathing.

Still asking

 What would happen if I fed my body love instead of shame?

What if I stopped making her carry messages soaked in self-loathing?

What if I said: I see you. I’m sorry. Let’s try again.

I don’t know how to love you yet,

but I want to learn.

I’ll start here:

Hand on heart.

Hand on belly.

Breath like a whisper.

I’m here.

I know you’re tired.

I’m not leaving.

You don’t have to hold the pain alone anymore.

This time…

maybe you’ll believe me.