Growing up as the glass child, I was the one no one had to worry about. The hyper-independent one. The quiet one. The child who learned that silence was easier than asking. The child who became complacent because even when I needed to be held, I told myself I was fine.
Sometimes I wished something terrible would happen to me, just so they would finally notice. Maybe then they would pause, maybe then they would care. But I was invisible in my own home, walking alone with my head high, pretending that neglect was strength, pretending that being forgotten was a lesson meant to equip me.
But lessons cut deeper when they are buried. Suppressed emotions have a way of crawling back, don't they? A simple gesture of kindness will undo me, tears rising uninvited, as if my body has been waiting for years to be seen. And when a boyfriend turned neglectful, when his silence screamed louder than words, it cemented what I already feared: maybe I was meant to be alone, even in sickness and in health.
I went the extra mile, pouring love into letters, small gestures, soft words, only to be met with blank stares or unreturned warmth. And somewhere in the ache, I realized I was in love with the way I loved. Because no one had ever taught me how to receive it. Maybe in those moments, I was secretly nurturing the child inside me, the one who had never been chosen first.
The scars show themselves when "I am sorry" is whispered too many times, stripped of meaning. Words that should heal only reopen wounds when they become the soundtrack of your life. And so, I return to the same role: the independent one, the reliable one, the unshakable one. But this independence is not a victory. It is survival dressed in strength.
So tell me. Am I overbearing for wanting to be loved fully? Am I asking for too much when I beg the universe for tenderness? Or do you, too, have scars that hide beneath your smile, wounds that throb when kindness brushes too close?
Because here is the truth: alcohol does not numb it, sleep does not quiet it, and success does not erase it. The glass child grows into an adult who shatters in silence. Who bleeds where no one can see.
And when a stranger's simple kindness leaves me undone, I find myself on my knees, not from love but from the heaviness of never knowing how to accept it.
So tell me, did you ever want to love me? Or was I just another naive woman, easy to pick up, easy to put down?
Because my glass may be shattered, but my soul still cuts. And I want you to feel it too.