Hunger.

I have mistaken hunger for purpose, chased things that consumed me because I thought being devoured meant I was desired.

There is a difference between being needed and being used— but it blurs when you are starving for validation.

I fed people pieces of myself until I had nothing left to recognize as mine. And they called it love, and I believed them.

Because I did not yet know that real love does not require self-erasure, it does not demand you shrink to be digestible, it does not leave you emptier than it found you.

So I stopped offering myself as something to be consumed, and started becoming someone who cannot be.