I Don’t Know Why | Poetry

I don’t know why—

why I’m always the one feeling misunderstood,

as if my silence is a fault,

my words, an attack.

You judge me by how I sound,

but never by the ache that shapes my voice.

You defend your intent—

but hold mine on trial.

When I say I’m tired, you say I’m too much.

When I say nothing, you say I’m cold.

Why no one understands me

still keeps me up at night.

I don’t know why—

why I speak from the heart,

and you only hear with your ears.

The moment I share my truth,

it’s filtered through the noise of your assumptions.

You see an outburst.

I feel an overflow.

And just like that—

I’m the villain in your story again.

Even then, I stay quiet,

as if silence will finally earn me peace.

But that’s how people-pleasing trauma is born:

trying to shrink into spaces

where no one makes room for who you really are.

I don’t know why—

why I believed I had to earn love

by molding myself into what you needed.

I wasn’t taught to learn to say no;

I was trained to perform.

To overextend.

To smile when hurting.

To apologize for having needs.

And now, I’m just emotionally drained

from playing roles I never auditioned for.

Tired of pretending to be okay,

though my soul’s been screaming for years.

I don’t know why—

why I thought I could survive

by endlessly trying to fit in.

After all, I was only trying to belong.

But every time I bent to fit,

I lost another piece of myself.

Eventually, I couldn’t recognize the reflection—

just shadows of who I was

before I learned to disappear

in other people’s expectations.

So maybe it’s time.

Time to stop being a people pleaser,

time to withdraw,

not out of weakness—

but to begin again.

To unlearn the shame.

To honor my voice.

Instead of conforming, I choose clarity.

Instead of noise, I choose stillness.

Because sometimes, healing means stepping away

from the noise that drowns you

and toward the quiet that knows you.

This is more than pain.

This is mental health awareness.

This is reclaiming the right to feel,

to speak,

to exist—

without always having to explain why.

And if that makes me the one feeling misunderstood again,

so be it—

at least this time, I’m choosing myself.