What It Feels Like to Fade

Even ghosts want to be called beautiful.

You’re walking around every day with a heart that’s breaking in quiet, invisible ways. Loving someone who might not even realize he’s watching you fade. You’re doing the dishes with tears in your eyes, wiping counters like it’ll wipe away the ache. Wishing he'd just come up and grab you. Anywhere. Pull your hair back. Kiss you. Whisper how was your day in your ear.

And what hurts most? It’s not one big thing. It’s a thousand tiny cuts.

The unanswered check-ins.

The conversations where you ask all the questions, and no one asks back.

The way he doesn’t see your sadness. The way no one ever really has.

You become “the mom.” The planner. The keeper of schedules and snacks and secrets. You hold the weight of everyone’s world while yours crumbles in silence.

And when you try to speak? It comes out twisted. Everytime. You yell. Youre mean. Irritated. Irrational. Always crying…

Too emotional, messy, too much.

So you stop.

You swallow it.

You fade a little more.

You love him. That’s the hardest part.

You love him, and still, you feel alone. So fucking alone. Like you're background noise in your own life.

And when the sadness swells. When it reaches that high-end ache. When your heart is breaking. You can literally feel it. You know that feeling?

You start craving something reckless. Something you know you're not supposed to do.

Something that will ruin you're life in you act on impulse.

Not because you want to ruin things, but because you want to feel something.

Something that belongs to you.

Something that reminds you that you’re still here, still breathing, still worthy of care.

Still desired. STILL FUCKABLE.

You’ve never been the emergency. Ever. Even though you're a hot fucking mess. You’ve always been the ambulance.

But even ambulances break down. Even you deserve to be rescued, mama.

I wish he knew that I’m not just tired. I’m tired of pretending I’m fine. That the sigh I let out before bed isn’t about the laundry, or the dishes, or the day.

It’s about everything. It’s about feeling like I’m disappearing in front of someone I would’ve burned my whole life down for.

I wish he knew that when I get quiet, it’s not peace.

It’s resignation.

It’s me giving up on being understood that night.

It’s me wondering if the girl I used to be is still in here somewhere, or if I gave her away in pieces, one overlooked need, at a time.

I wish he knew that I don’t want grand gestures. I want presence. I want him to grab my neck and kiss me like he used to. At this old house. Before the kids. Before the noise.

The question asked without a clock behind it.

The look that says, “I see you. And I miss you. And I still choose you. I want you.”

Because lately, it feels like I’m just the woman who lives here. Just the voice the complains, the hands on the lunchboxes, the name behind the calendar reminders.

Not the girl who made him nervous.

Not the girl who gave him random blow jobs in his white Dodge.

The girl who gave him lap dances in the living room. After going to strip clubs.

The woman he once fought to impress.

The one he'd send daily morning messages about how I was, well, his everything.

How, “Life wouldn't be completed if my smile wasnt in his life”. His words not mine.

Not the heart he used to chase.

I’m not asking for perfect.

I’m not even asking for much. I don't think.

I know Im not the girl I was.

I just want to matter again to you. The way I used to.

Not in a passive, obligatory way but in a real, stop-what-you’re-doing-and-look-at-me way.

The way it used to be. You couldn't keep your hands off me.

I want to be the emergency. Just once.

I’m bleeding out quietly in the background, and he’s polishing his handlebars.

Just wanting someone to run toward my pain instead of waiting for me to patch it up before bedtime.

But he rides away from it.

Literally. Into his bike club, his hobby, his friends, his freedom.

Into everything and everyone that isn’t me.

He’ll tune a chain before he checks in on my heart. He’ll stay late to help friends get a color match faster than he’ll notice I’m falling apart.

There’s always time for the ride though. And everyone else

But somehow never time for this. For me. For the mess. His mess.

The questions I don’t ask out loud anymore because I already know the answer.

I’m not the thing he escapes to. I’m the thing he escapes from.

And I hate that I notice. Hate that I still wait. Hate that I’ve become something silent and sturdy while he chases the wind like he’s still untouchable.

It’s not about the bike. It’s about the way he comes alive when he’s on it. And the way he forgets I exist when he’s off.

I used to be the adventure. Now I’m just the stop sign he rolls through.

I wish he knew that I still love him.

That’s the cruelest part of all. I love him so much it hurts. And I just want to stop hurting.

I buried her with my own hands.

She didn’t go quietly. She clawed at the surface for a while. Screamed into pillows. Whispered into locked bathroom mirrors. She asked questions like, “Is this all I get?” and “Why does love feel like waiting to be chosen, every day?”

I told her to shut up.

I told her: He’s a good man.

I told her: Be grateful. Be quiet. Be easy to love.

So, I traded her fire for papatience. Well, as much as I could. Her voice for usefulness. Her body for service. Her dreams for duty.

I softened her until she was unrecognizable. Then I called it “maturity.”

But some nights, I hear her in the silence between us. She’s the one who cries when I’m numb. The one who screams, “Choose me! PLEASE, just fucking choose me”

Even when I know he won’t. Never has.

I feel her when I reach for something reckless. Something low. Something dirty.

When I try to feel anything in a room where I’m only ever seen as a vessel.

I’m not a wife. I’m a hole that gets filled.

A void that makes other people whole.

And I’ve said yes to things I didn’t want, just to feel like someone wanted me.

A short leash wrapped in compliments. A prescription wrapped in arms.

I've felt freer dead-eyed and bent over a counter than I have standing tall in his light.

I told myself I was choosing him. THIS.

But the truth is. I chose silence.

I chose to be erased.

I let someone else become my voice, my god, my gravity.

And now?

Now I want her back. God, I want her back.

Not the broken girl. The burning one.

The one who said “no” without apology. The one who wanted more, not just to be wanted.

The one who didn’t shrink for love. Who made love grow to meet her.

I want to dig her out of the shallow grave I made with wedding vows and soft-spoken sacrifices.

I want her rage. I want her sex. I want her voice. I want her self.

Because maybe she wasn’t the problem! Maybe the problem was thinking love meant losing her in the first place.

And maybe, finally, I’m ready to stop fading and start rising.

The Hunger I'm Not Supposed to Name. (What No One Tells You About Becoming a Wife) No one tells you that once you become a wife, you're no longer the chase.

You're the destination.

And destinations don’t get flowers. They get tread on. They get parked at. They get taken for granted.

No one tells you that the same body he used to crave becomes background.

Familiar.

Forgettable.

You’re still touched, but not worshipped.

Still kissed, but not with hunger.

You become the keeper of routines.

The voice calling out bedtime.

The body that gets brushed against on the way to the fridge.

And maybe once a week, you’re close.

But only after the kitchen’s clean, the doors are locked, and the house is quiet.

Only after you’ve done everything else.

It’s not that the sex stops.

It’s that it becomes scheduled.

Predictable.

Another item on the invisible list you carry in your head.

But the hunger, your hunger, doesn’t leave.

It builds quietly.

In the background.

While you fold his clothes.

While you brush your teeth.

While he tells you, distracted, that you look good. Not beautiful. Never beautiful.

What's the point of getting ready when he barely looks up from his phone?

You miss being undone.

You miss the way he used to pull your shirt off like he needed to know what was underneath.

You miss the kiss that cut you off mid-sentence.

The grip that left marks.

The ache that came from being seen as a woman, not just a wife. Not just a mother.

And when you try to explain this, if you even dare, you’re told it’s normal….

That you should be grateful.

That this is marriage.

But no one tells you what it does to a woman to be touched without being wanted.

They should print that on the box of condoms. Just sayn.

To wonder if he’s imagining someone else. Even the old you. The one that was worth calling even “Hot!”

While you’re trying to remember who you used to be.

No one talks about how quiet the bedroom gets when desire dies.

How you start to question your own body.

How you wonder if it’s your fault.

If maybe you’re the one who faded.

If maybe you should just settle.

Because good wives don’t beg.

Good women don’t stray.

And good mothers don’t ache for things they’re not being given.

But you do.

You want to be kissed without warning.

Pressed against walls, not just washed in praise.

You want someone to say, I can’t stop thinking about you, and mean it.

You want to be wanted, not out of duty, but out of fire.

And if you're honest with yourself. He doesn't even need to be the one to give to you anymore.

Does he even want to?

You just need it to be real.

Because you’re still here.

You still feel.

You still burn.

You’re not a void to be filled.

You’re not a vessel for his ego.

You’re a woman.

And you are starving.

The Last Time I Felt Beautiful. It wasn’t the wedding. It wasn’t an anniversary. It wasn’t a night with candles or champagne.

It was random. And rare.

And it wasn’t just about how I looked.

It was how I was seen.

He looked at me like I was art.

Like I was a secret.

Like he couldn’t believe I was real.

I remember the way his hands hovered just before they touched me. Like he didn’t want to rush it. Like he was savoring the moment. Like he knew exactly what he had.

I laughed at something. Something dumb, something small and he said, “God, you’re gorgeous”, with that tone. The one that doesn’t ask for anything. The one that doesn’t lead anywhere. The one that just means it.

That was the last time I felt beautiful. I think….

Not cute. Not put together. Not “thanks for doing your makeup.”

Beautiful.

The kind of beautiful that melts you from the inside. The kind that makes you feel soft and powerful all at once. The kind that makes you believe in the mirror.

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time he made me feel beautiful.

He never uses that word.

I hear “nice.”

I hear “you look good.”

I hear “NO, babe, you don't look fat.”

After Ive changed 5times or more. Waiting to for the words.

But I never hear that.

And it shouldn’t matter, but it does. Because sometimes a single word can be the difference between surviving the day and wanting to be seen inside it.

Since then, it’s been mirrors I avoid. Like a plague.

Mirrors I clean, but don’t look into. Mirrors that reflect a woman doing her best, but never quite feeling enough.

I get compliments, sure. But it’s not the same.

They don’t see me.

Not the way he did. Not the way he used to.

And maybe that’s what I miss the most.

Not the way he touched me. Not even the way he loved me.

But the way he saw me. Like I was something rare.

Now I just feel like something useful.

Worn.

Reliable.

Good.

Stretched. Like your favorite old sweater you can't get rid of.

But not beautiful.

And I don’t know how to ask for it.

Because it feels pathetic to say,

“Please, remind me that I’m still radiant.”

“Please, tell me you still see me.”

“Please, look at me like you used to.”

So I keep quiet. And I wonder if I’ll ever feel that beautiful again. Or if that version of me is gone, buried beneath motherhood and monotony.

I used to think being chosen was the end of the story.

That once someone picked you, loved you, promised you forever, the ache would finally stop.

But no one tells you that you have to be chosen again.

And again. And again. Every single day.

Because forever is only beautiful when someone’s still showing up for it.

Still seeing you.

Still reaching for you like they’re afraid to lose you.

And somewhere along the way, he stopped reaching.

Maybe slowly.

Maybe all at once.

But I felt it.

In the way his eyes skim past me when I walk into a room.

In the way he doesn’t notice when I wear something new. In the way he falls asleep facing the other way, and I stop turning back toward him.

I wait for him to look up. To say, “You’re still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

To touch me like he means it.

To choose me again.

But I just keep waiting. I make the dinner. I wash the clothes. I keep the house moving. I keep our world spinning.

And I wonder, quietly, if I disappeared? If I just stopped…

Would he notice? Would he chase me?

Or would he just assume I’d come back, like I always do?

Because that’s what I do.

I come back. Even when I’m not wanted.

Even when the silence is louder than the love.

But something in me is shifting. I can feel it.

The waiting doesn’t feel romantic anymore.

It feels degrading.

It feels like betrayal.

How long do I wait to be chosen again?

How long before I realize I never stopped choosing him.

He stopped choosing me a long time ago?

How long before I choose myself instead?