The Numb Girl

I just got back from a week at the cottage with my family.

It was the kind of vacation that held both light and heaviness; days filled with laughter, food, games, sunburns, and stories. And still… moments where I found myself drifting in the middle of conversations, present in body but not really there.

I think I used to be better at faking it. At smiling through the ache. At wearing this “I’m fine” mask so tight around the people I love that I even convinced myself it was real. But lately, the mask feels heavier. It slips. It cracks. And I’m terrified someone might actually see beneath it. Worse, I’m scared they still won’t understand.

I’ve always been the “strong” one. The listener. The one who holds space for everyone else while quietly losing pieces of myself behind closed doors. I still don’t know how to say, “Hey, I’m not okay.” So instead, I write.
Poetry has become my release; a way to scream without a sound, to feel without needing permission.
It helps me feel heard, even when I can’t bring myself to speak.
Even when I don’t believe I deserve to.

This poem — The Numb Girl — is about that version of me I’ve been carrying.
The one who keeps moving because stopping might make everything collapse.
The one who wants someone to just see her without having to explain.
Maybe you know her too.

The Numb Girl

She smiles in mirrors she doesn’t believe,
Wears laughter like fabric she’ll never retrieve.
Moves through the world like she knows how to cope,
But inside she’s a flicker, not fire—just smoke.

She wakes up each day and does what she must,
Fills every silence with motion or dust.
Answers “I’m fine” without skipping a beat,
But her truth lives in shadows, not out in the street.

The numb girl remembers what feeling once meant,
But now all her edges feel hollow and bent.
She wishes for tears, for something to break,
But her body’s gone quiet—she just lies awake.

She walks like a secret, too heavy to share,
Wants someone to notice, but hates when they care.
She’s tired of being the one who’s “so strong,”
Who listens and carries, but breaks all along.

She burns without fire, she drowns without rain,
She aches for a sorrow she can’t even name.
And maybe she’s healing—just slower than most,
Or maybe she’s haunted by too many ghosts.

But she’s here. Still breathing. Still fighting to try.
Still hoping one day she’ll remember to cry.
Still waiting to feel like she’s more than a shell
That the numb girl inside has a story to tell.

— K