Chapter 1
Too Much & Not Enough
You came into my life so quietly
I didn’t notice how quickly I started breathing easier.
How your presence felt like someone finally turning the lights on
in a room I’d been stumbling through for years.
And maybe that’s why I’m scared.
Because I’ve learned the pattern—
the way people look at me differently
after they’ve seen the storms behind my ribs,
after they’ve watched my thoughts spiral too fast,
too loud,
too heavy.
They always say it’s okay
until it isn’t.
They call the episodes “one-offs,”
brush them aside like they’re inconveniences
or bad moods
I should’ve been able to swallow.
They tell me I’m too much,
and somehow at the very same time,
not enough—
not stable enough,
not easy enough,
not simple enough to love
without conditions.
So when you look at me like I matter,
like you see a whole person
instead of a diagnosis wrapped in skin,
something inside me panics.
I’m terrified that you’ll leave,
not because you want to,
but because history has taught me
that love has a breaking point
and my mind has a habit
of pressing against it.
I worry you’ll see me on the days
I can’t get out of bed,
when my thoughts grow sharp
and my emotions come in tidal waves,
and you’ll decide—
like the others did—
that it’s too much water to hold back.
I worry you’ll meet the version of me
who talks too fast,
thinks too hard,
feels too deeply,
and you’ll remember
everyone else who said
I was overwhelming.
I worry you’ll watch me unravel
and mistake it for weakness
instead of the battle it is.
But the truth—the thing that scares me the most—
is that with you,
I want to stay.
I want to be chosen.
I want to believe someone could see
all the jagged parts of me
and still think I’m worth loving.
So here I am,
hands shaking but honest,
hoping you’ll be the first person
who doesn’t run
when the light hits the messy corners.
Hoping you’ll stay
not because I’m perfect,
but because you see the fight in me,
the softness,
the heart that keeps trying
even when it’s tired.
Hoping you’ll stay
because for the first time in a long time,
I want someone to.
