Let Something Good Live

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

I don’t need villains.

I don’t need bad luck.

I don’t need the universe to sharpen its teeth for me

I do that myself.

I am the storm that shows up early,

kicks the door in

right when something good finally sits down beside me.

I sabotage sunsets

by staring at the dark that’s coming next.

I water flowers with doubt

then act surprised when they drown.

Every time joy knocks,

I answer with suspicion

frisk it for hidden motives,

interrogate it like it’s lying just by existing.

Happiness comes in quietly,

barefoot,

trying not to wake my trauma

and I slam cabinets in my own chest

just to prove I was right not to trust it.

I overthink blessings until they bruise.

I rehearse endings

while things are still beginning.

I peel the paint off good moments

searching for rot

and somehow

I always find it.

Or invent it.

I take the smallest wins

and hold them like fragile glass,

then squeeze.

Not because I want them broken

but because some part of me

needs proof

that nothing ever stays.

I am fluent in self-fulfilling prophecy.

I build exits in rooms that don’t require escape.

I light matches in houses

that were finally warm.

And the worst part?

I do it gently.

Quietly.

With logic that sounds like protection.

I tell myself

“I’m just being realistic.”

But realism shouldn’t feel like

putting a knife back into your own hand

after it finally stopped bleeding.

I am my own warning label.

My own red flag waving from the inside.

The voice that says,

“Don’t get used to this,”

right when life offers me something soft.

Sometimes I wonder

who I’d be

if I didn’t flinch at kindness.

If I didn’t treat peace like a prank.

If I let good things stay

without asking them to explain themselves.

But old habits have long memories.

And I keep mistaking familiarity

for truth.

Still

somewhere beneath the wreckage I’ve rehearsed,

there’s a version of me

learning how not to swing first.

Learning that not every good thing

is a setup.

I’m trying

to stop fighting myself

long enough

to see what might happen

if I didn’t.

If I just

for once

let something good live.