Annihilation
Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe
I can fix it.
No—
I can fix me.
That’s the problem.
That’s always the problem.
I am too much in the wrong places
and not enough in the ones that matter
and if I could just—
wait—
if I could just figure out
the exact version of myself
that doesn’t make you leave—
I would become it.
I would.
Tell me what it is.
No, don’t—
I’ll find it.
I always do.
I can hear it in the pauses,
in the almosts,
in the way something shifts
just slightly out of reach.
I know what that means.
It means adjust.
It means try again.
It means
be better.
Be quieter.
Be easier.
Be less sharp, less loud, less—
less.
God, just less.
Take it off.
Take it all off.
The opinions—gone.
The needs—irrelevant.
The parts that hesitate,
that question,
that want anything at all—
unnecessary.
You don’t need those
to be loved.
You don’t.
Do you?
No.
No, you don’t.
You just need to be right.
Right shape.
Right tone.
Right timing.
Right reaction
at the exact right moment
so nothing falters, nothing cracks, nothing—
breaks.
Because if it breaks
it was you.
It was always you.
So don’t let it break.
Hold it together.
Hold it together.
Hold it—
God, why is this so hard?
It shouldn’t be hard.
Other people do this
without thinking.
They are wanted
without trying.
They are chosen
without becoming something else first.
Why can’t I just—
No.
No, don’t go there.
That’s not helpful.
Fix it.
Fix it now.
Say the right thing.
Be softer.
Smile differently.
Care less—no, more—no, exactly the right amount.
Anticipate.
Anticipate everything.
Don’t make them ask.
Don’t make them wait.
Don’t make them notice
that you are trying this hard
because that would ruin it.
Because then it’s not real.
Because then it doesn’t count.
Because then—
you don’t count.
So erase it.
Erase the effort.
Erase the wanting.
Erase the part of you
that needs anything back.
You don’t need anything back.
You don’t.
You just need them
to stay.
That’s enough.
That has to be enough.
I can do this.
I can be smaller.
Smaller.
Smaller.
—
There.
See?
Better.
Quieter.
Easier.
Nothing left to trip over.
Nothing left to reject.
Nothing left—
—
why does it still feel
like I am about to be left?
Keep My Words Alive
If this poem has stayed with you, you can help keep my words alive. Every bit of support helps carry the stories forward.
WHERE WORDS MEET MORNING LIGHT
BEGIN EACH DAY WITH SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
Every morning at 11:11AM, I send a poem — sometimes soft, sometimes devastating, always true.
💚 Subscribe now to read and breathe and feel along with me 💚
Poetry by Britt Wolfe:
This piece explores the quiet but irreversible moment when a life is divided into before and after—not by choice, but by something done to you that you were never meant to carry. It is about the disorientation of remembering who you were before you knew, and the stark, often unrecognizable person you become after. There is a particular kind of unfairness in being reshaped by harm while the source of it continues on, untouched, elsewhere. And yet, within that fracture, there is also a truth that refuses to be erased: that even in the aftermath of something you did not choose, you are still here, still becoming, still learning how to live with both versions of yourself at once. 🖤