Surviving

Have you ever noticed
the bags under her eyes
Or the anger issues
that she has?

Her hollow cheeks
and her cracked lips
still forced into a smile.
Struggling to show everyone
That she's a fighter
that she will be alright.

No one bothered
to hold her close, to tell her
that it's okay not to
be fine.

So she breathed through her life
as if it were a battlefield
and wished that one day she would live,
and not just survive.