what it feels like to be made of envy

i wrote 3 poems today.

they were bad, and damn near unintelligible, but i posted it anyway.

why?

for attention, maybe. or a misguided cry to the outside world--a cry for someone to come and make me feel okay again. make me feel like me again.

and i guess, that's the root of the problem, isn't it?

i don't feel like me. haven't felt like me in quite a while. i'm a kind person. an easygoing person. a forgiving person. someone who brushes off things that don't matter. someone who only lets herself dwell on insecurities for so long. not someone easily offended, not someone who's tired all the time--someone who feels the need to just... be useful. stop being a burden.

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well, that last part's not true. i am that person. the one who always feels like a burden, so tries twice as hard to be needed. but the thing is, i thought i was getting better. i thought... i thought finally i'm my own person. or... becoming one anyway. one person who doesn't need others' validation to determine her self-worth. guess not.

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i am envious. that's always been a defining part of me.

i envy my friend, who is so good at making friends. so amazing at making people feel comfortable, important, wanted. she has no trouble wrapping people around her finger. and she's so unapologetically herself. selfish and controlling, loud and a bit insensitive at times, but she embraces that. she lets her flaws simply be parts of her, instead of things that consume her with fears and fill her head with screaming voices.

i envy my best friend, who is so so strong. who keeps herself together, even when all she wants is to curl up and cry. sure, she has her days. days when the world is just too much, too heavy on her shoulders. but still--she's there. no matter what, she's there. trying. coping. standing.

i envy my other best friend, who is so similar to me sometimes i'm convinced we're two halves of a soul. she goes through the same things i do--i can tell, but she handles it so much more beautifully. she's not afraid to talk--to express herself, speak her thoughts. no matter how bad they are--she speaks. she is the version of me i wish i could become. 

i envy my high school mate, who is a beautiful writer. she is capable of so much--everything she writes, i feel. hell, she can make me feel nostalgic for a love i've never had in the first place. her words are graceful, eloquent, simple. she doesn't need big vocabularies to convey her meaning. she doesn't need to ramble or describe excessively. she just... does. and it's beautiful. it makes me feel like a child playing with words.

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i am envious. that's always been my defining trait. but lately, it is so much more than that. it is what i breathe, what i speak, what i live. envy is all around me. gnawing at me, turning me cold and bitter, passive-aggressive and depressive. it chokes me until it is all i feel. i can't breathe, i can't speak, i can't...

i can't stop.

i don't know how to. everyone talks about loving yourself, but where do you start?

how do you start when there's no part of you worth loving?