You will be out with friends and notice how the conversation
always lulls when it becomes about you. You notice, you have
always noticed how no one ever seems to ask “How are
you,” how no one ever seems to care. But these are the
people you call “friends.” These are the people you
have trusted with your secrets for years, but hasn’t it
always felt like confessing to a wall?
So you come home.
You will arrive home and notice how your mother lights up with
affection when your brother, your sister say
“Hello,” yet go rigid when she hears your
footsteps. You notice, you have always noticed how every
accomplishment fell on deaf ears, every failure welcomed with a
slap back. So you say “Hello” and receive silence.
So you walk on your tiptoes just a bit lighter. But these are
the people you call “family,” the person you call
“mom.” This is whose feet you have always licked
without being kissed in return, but hasn’t it always felt
like whiplash?
So maybe you seek solace elsewhere.
You will go to him to nestle on the sanctuary that is his chest
and notice how he never quite meets your eye when you exchange
“I love yous.” You notice, you have always noticed
how his gaze casually flickers towards the skinny white girl
with the toned a.ss, the
perky t.its. You
have always noticed how you blame other people for your misery.
But this is the boy you call “lover,” and you are
what you call “unwanted.” These are the moments
when you’ve felt like discarded trash, but hasn’t
it always felt like surrender? Hasn’t it always felt like
self-punishment?
You think you are not good enough. Not sexy enough. Not funny
enough.
And you aren’t. You are more.
You are more than your loneliness, than your self-pity, than
your hunger. You have noticed, and you will always notice how
there’s too much space between the both of you when you
hug, how all your life you’ve been trying to keep up with
people trying to leave you behind, how you often seem to be in
the outer edges of a circle. Uninvited, unsure.
Your jokes will never be enough. Your text messages never
enough. Your gifts, open palms, and naked love never enough.
Your absence goes unnoticed. Your words make no marked
difference because you’re no one, you’re nothing,
you don’t matter. But not to the right person. You should
never be made to think that you are too difficult to be loved,
because you aren’t, but to the wrong people you will
be.
Your worth is not composed of the hearts of people who refuse
to love you. And how “enough” you are isn’t
measured by how many people make you feel like it.
You are not defined by the number of people who like
you.
You are not an option, or a filler, or somebody’s
godd.amn poster
child.
You are enough. You’ve always been more than
enough, but to the wrong people you’ll always be
inadequate.
—Sade Andria Zabala, Open Letter to the Ones Who Are
Never Good Enough