overwhelmed feelings

 Today broke me in ways I didn’t expect.

It’s the anniversary of my father’s funeral, and everything I’ve been holding inside cracked open. I didn’t feel like the 19-year-old me I felt like 12-year-old Leena again, waiting for her father to come home from that plcae, Only this time, there’s no hope, no door opening, no footsteps. Just the truth that he’s gone forever. And that thought that the hands I held, the face I kissed  is now nothing but bones… it shattered something inside me.

I’ve been blasting music  anything loud enough to make my mind numb , It’s the only thing that makes the silence bearable.

And as if grief wasn’t enough, life had to add humiliation on top of it.

I needed a coat for my uniform. My stepbrother refused to go with me, tossed me chump change like I was begging on the street. So I went with my mother, but every thrift shop felt wrong. I was already on edge. And when she kept insisting I was being “unreasonable,” I snapped. I yelled. I didn’t want to. I didn’t plan to. But grief and frustration and pressure all collided and spilled out of my mouth before I could stop it.

We ended up buying a coat from a proper shop with my own money because of course the money he gave wasn’t enough. And when I told him, he complained it was too expensive and told me to return it. When I said I couldn’t, he shrugged and said it wasn’t his problem.

He made me feel stupid. Small. Worthless.

Like I’m a burden for existing.

I’m so tired of being treated like this by him. I hate that he makes me feel like I’m nothing. And on top of everything, I feel guilty for snapping at my mother. Even when she’s wrong, even when she doesn’t understand, I still end up drowning in guilt afterward.

Today I cried alone in my room. Really cried ,the kind I’ve been holding back for months. And even when the thoughts got dark, even when the emptiness scared me, I reminded myself,

I’m not giving him the satisfaction of breaking me.

I’m still here.

I’m safe.

And I deserve to live, even if he acts like I don’t.

This day hurt. It hurt in every direction. But writing it down makes it feel a little less suffocating.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll breathe a little easier.

Tonight… I just needed to survive.