Don’t force joy.

Instructions

I didn’t ask to be someone’s obsession. Didn’t mean to become a target just by being kind. He said he loved me like it was a fact, like something I owed him back. When I didn’t feel it, he called it denial. Called me confused. Called my real crush a fantasy that would rot and fail and leave me empty. Every message felt like a warning. Paragraphs stacked on paragraphs, my name twisted into threats disguised as care. He said he knew me better than I knew myself. That one day I’d realize I ruined everything. I blocked him. He came back. New accounts. New words. Same pressure, same breath on the back of my neck through a screen. Then one night the internet followed me home. The sound wasn’t loud— just wrong. A door where a door shouldn’t be. Footsteps that didn’t belong to us. My heart tried to leave my body before I could move. They took him away in flashing lights, hands locked, mouth still talking, still insisting he was right. Breaking and entering, they said. Like it was just a phrase, not the way my safety shattered. After, I couldn’t stand. My sister held me like I was small again, like the world hadn’t just proved how cruel it could be. Her arms were the only thing keeping me here. And I cried. Cried into her shoulder, cried until my throat burned, cried because I was scared, because I felt guilty for surviving, because being wanted like that felt worse than being alone. I cried. And cried. And cried. Even now, I flinch at notifications. I lock my doors twice. I wonder how love can turn so sharp, so fast. I’m still here, though. Still breathing. Still learning that not every “I love you” is safe, and not every tear means I’m weak. ======================================= I met her between loading screens, in comment sections and late replies. She laughed in text, somehow— like you could hear it even without sound. She loved k-dramas, talked about them like they were real life, like the characters were mutual friends we all secretly knew. She made everyone laugh— even on bad days, especially on mine. She felt like a sister I found by accident. The kind you don’t have to explain yourself to. When I hurt, she didn’t rush me. She just stayed. Read every word. Let the silence breathe. When he came back— the one who wouldn’t leave me alone— she was louder than my fear. She stood between me and him with nothing but words and still made them strong enough. I don’t think she knows how much that mattered. I love her, the safest way. No ache, no wanting more. Just gratitude that feels warm in my chest. The kind of love that doesn’t ask to be anything else. I tell myself I’m online too much. That I’m hiding here. That one day I’ll log off and be fine. But when everything feels like noise, when the screen feels like a cage instead of a window, she’s there— sending something stupid, something kind, something that makes me smile without trying. So maybe this place isn’t all bad. Maybe staying isn’t just running. Because in all the glowing pixels and distance, there is one good thing. And sometimes, that’s enough. ======================================= I wake up to the glow before I wake up to myself. The screen is already there, waiting, like it knows I’ll come back. I log in because I always do. Not because I need to— at least that’s what I tell myself— but because there’s something hollow that only fills when the page loads. A ritual I didn’t choose but somehow keep obeying. Every message sticks. Every “lol,” every pause, every typo. They glue themselves behind my eyes, etch into my head like subtitles I can’t turn off. Posts blur into thoughts, threads tangle with my own memories. I dream in notifications. Conversations replay on a loop, what I said, what I didn’t, what I should’ve typed instead. Even asleep, I’m still online. Sometimes I want to rip the screen out of my mind, smash it until it’s nothing but shards, silence, relief. I want to be free of the glow, free of the noise, free of the part of me that refreshes just in case. But if I do, I lose them. Every name I’ve memorized. Every voice I’ve learned through text. Every person who stayed when I said I wasn’t okay. I have no one waiting for me offline. No chairs pulled out at lunch. No footsteps matching mine. All I have are digital hands reaching through glass, and somehow they feel warmer than anything real ever did. So I stare. I stay. Because breaking the screen means breaking every place I was ever seen. =======================================