Fake kindness

I try to be good. I try to be the kind of person who can light up someone else's day, who can warm an entire room, just by entering it. I want to be a person, who carries a name, which sticks to the tongue and glues to the heart as someone you will remember. Someone who made a difference. Someone who always showed up with a smile, but who still dared to be herself, and show vulnerability.

Sometimes I'm afraid it's all a game. Sometimes I'm afraid it's a role I one day decided to play. Sometimes I'm afraid that all I want, and all I've ever wanted, is to be liked. I'm afraid I'm trying too hard. I'm afraid of being portrayed as someone I am not, I'm afraid to show all my colours, only to be terrified the times people see me in black and white. I am terrified to put a filter on myself where I present myself as someone who has always been good and always been positive.

I'm afraid that caring, and loving, is the only thing I can be portrayed as. I'm afraid to go too hard. afraid that someone will see me, and believe my life is perfect, but I am also terrified of people who get an insight and see that my life is as far from perfect as it gets. I'm trying to be kind. I try to be good, but sometimes I'm afraid I try too hard. Sometimes I feel like I'm pushing it forward, in a way that portrays me as fake. fake positivity, toxic positivity.

I tried to choose to take care of myself when getting out of bed was the hardest task I had to do in a day. I tried to choose to stand up for myself, but how can I? When I don't even recognise myself.

I tried to choose to take care of myself and to put myself first in the situations I had previously been placed in at the back, but I think every time I followed everyone else's desires about who they hoped I would.

I try to be good - but I have never been able to be good to myself. and how can the kindness I give to everyone else be real if the kindness I give to myself is fake?