What They Hate In You Is Missing In Them

They call you...too much, too loud, too bright, too sure of yourself-

but it is not your voice they hate,

it is their silence.

They say you think you're special,

but it is not your confidence that offends them,

it is the mirror you hold up

to their doubt, their smallness,

the spaces inside them where self-love never bloomed.

They pick apart your laughter, your fire, your light,

like scavengers desperate to dim

what they cannot understand,

but they not mad at you -

they are mourning themselves.

They never learned to take up space,

so they call you arrogant.

They never learned to trust their own steps,

so they call you reckless.

They never learned to love their reflection,

so they try to break yours.

They twist your name in their mouths,

chew it like bitter fruit,

spit it out in pieces,

hoping it will sound less sweet-

but the taste of envy lingers.

They resent the way you walk into a room like you belong there,

like you have every right to exist without apology.

They resent the way your dreams take flight

while theirs are still crawling,

wings clipped by fear and hesitation.

They hate the way your love is boundless,

how you pour yourself into the world without keeping score,

how you glow from withing

while they search for light outside themselves.

They mistake their discomfort for your flaw.

Let me run that back.

They mistake their discomfort for your flaw.

Not realizing it is their own absence staring back at them.

But listen - what they hate in you

is what they lost,

what they buried,

what there were told was not allowed to exist.

So do not shrink,

do not fold yourself small to make them comfortable,

do not cut away pieces of yourself

to fit inside the void they refuse to fill.

Shine anyway.

Be everything they are afraid to be.

Let them choke on their own envy

while you drink from the well of your becoming.

Because you -

you are whole,

and they -

they are still searching for the pieces.

And maybe one day,

when the weight of their own emptiness

becomes too heavy to bear,

they will stop fighting your light

and start searching for their own.