Her Pages: A Girl's Diary

Her Pages
Diary Entry: 01.29.26

I come to school with a smile.
A practiced one. A careful one.
The kind that fools people into thinking I'm okay.
The kind that convinces them there's nothing to ask, nothing to worry about, nothing to stay for.

They see the smile, but they never see me.
They never notice my eyes-how they dim just a little,
how the tears don't fall anymore, only gather quietly in the corners,
learning to hide the same way I learned to hide.

No one hears the nights I cry myself empty.
The nights I beg-out loud, then in whispers, then only in my thoughts.
The nights I kneel on cold floors, hands shaking,
praying to God not for happiness, but for the pain to leave me for just a little while.
Just enough to breathe. Just enough to survive another day.

I'm kind. The kind that gives without keeping score.
I'm loud-not because I want attention, but because silence never held me the way words do.
I'm energetic, always moving, always showing up, always trying to bring light into rooms I feel heavy in.
I'm faithful-to people, to promises, to hope, even when hope keeps disappointing me.

I carry everyone's world on my shoulders as if it were my own.
I listen. I stay. I understand.
I become everyone's pamunas ng luha, the place they rest their sadness, the voice that tells them it will be okay-even when I don't know if it will be okay for me.

But when I break, no one offers me their shoulder.
When my voice cracks, the room goes quiet-not to listen, but to look away.
When I'm tired, truly tired, no one notices.
When I'm screaming inside, it's treated like noise, not a cry for help.

They avoid my eyes-the eyes of someone who's been holding back for so long,
someone who learned to be strong because I was never given the choice to be weak.
They don't see that I'm already breaking.
Or maybe they see it-and choose not to stay......