Never Enough

I learned to smile before I learned to speak

Learned perfection keeps the monsters asleep

Every gold star came with sharpened teeth

“Be somebody”… just never me

⸻

Tiny hands on a piano key

Trying to play what you wanted from me

Report cards hanging like courtroom signs

Every mistake became a crime

“Why can’t you be more like them?”

That sentence still lives beneath my skin

I built my worth from your applause

Now silence feels like loss

⸻

So I learned to shrink

Learned not to cry

Learned how to disappear in plain sight

⸻

I was never enough

Never enough for your eyes

Every time I stood up

You found another way to criticize

Now I’m older but the damage stays

Still hear your voice in my veins

No matter what I become

I still feel small

Still feel broken

Still feel wrong

⸻

Teenage ghost with a hollow stare

Hiding panic underneath dyed hair

Mirror talks like an enemy

Telling me what I’ll never be

Friends say I’m doing alright

But I still lose sleep every night

‘Cause confidence is counterfeit

And mine was built on punishment

⸻

Every achievement fades away

Like pouring rain on a wildfire brain

I break myself just to fit your mold

But fractured hearts don’t turn to gold

⸻

I was never enough

Never enough for your eyes

Every dream that I touched

Turned into another thing you’d minimize

Now I’m screaming through the same old ache

Trying not to drown in shame

No matter what I become

I still feel small

Still feel useless

Still feel numb

⸻

Maybe I was just a kid

Not a failure you had to fix

Maybe love shouldn’t feel like fear

Maybe scars shouldn’t last for years

You handed me impossible standards

Then blamed me when I shattered

Now I wear these doubts like chains

Dragging behind me every day

⸻

I AM MORE THAN YOUR EXPECTATIONS

MORE THAN THESE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS

YOU TAUGHT ME LOVE WAS SOMETHING EARNED

SO I HATE MYSELF FOR EVERYTHING I’M NOT

⸻

But I’m done being enough for you

Done bleeding just to prove

That I deserve a place in this world

Without carrying your words

Maybe the child inside my chest

Doesn’t have to ace every test

Maybe someday I’ll believe

I was enough for me

⸻

I was enough…

Before you told me I wasn’t.