Fear of Failing Everyone

I don’t fear failing one person—
I fear failing everyone.
Every stranger who crosses my path,
every soul I brush against for a moment
and never see again.

I know what pain looks like
before it speaks.
I recognize it in eyes that linger too long,
in jokes told a little too loudly,
in silences that beg not to be noticed.
I’ve lived there.
I remember the weight.

So I try to be careful with people.
Gentle.
Soft-spoken with their wounds.
I measure my words like they’re medicine,
afraid the wrong dose
might push someone deeper
into a place I barely escaped.

My fear isn’t disappointment—
it’s becoming a reason
someone goes home and feels emptier.
It’s being the last straw
on a back already breaking.

I don’t want to be another lesson,
another regret,
another quiet “I should’ve known better.”
I don’t want anyone to remember me
as a source of hurt.

So I smile when I’m exhausted.
I listen when I’m empty.
I give even when my hands shake
from being open too long.
If I can absorb the sadness,
maybe it won’t spread.

I carry other people’s emotions
like they’re fragile glass,
tucked against my chest,
terrified I’ll drop them.
Their happiness feels like my responsibility.
Their pain feels like my failure.

I don’t care what it costs me.
I already know how to be sad.
I just don’t want anyone else
to learn it through me.

But some nights,
alone with the quiet,
I wonder who catches me
when I finally crack—
who protects the one
who made a life out of protecting everyone else.

Fear of failure isn’t about success to me.
It’s about kindness.
About leaving people better
than I found them.
About not becoming another bruise
in a world already covered in them.

-𝕃ℝ 🖤

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