I Am Not Chosen

By: Lea El Hajal (TikTok: @lea_lhjl, Instagram: @lea_elhjl)

I am not chosen—I am not chosen when they arrive like spring in borrowed skin,

I am not chosen when they speak my name like it might stay.

I am not chosen when laughter sits between us, alive and warm,I am not chosen when it feels like finally, finally, something stays.

But it doesn’t stay.

It doesn’t stay when the words grow thinner,

it doesn’t stay when the silence learns my shape,

it doesn’t stay when I start to hear my own voice echo first

before anyone else remembers I am there.

I am not chosen.

I am not chosen in the slow retreat of eyes,

in the almost-replies,

in the “sorry, I forgot” that becomes a language.

I am not chosen when I begin to shrink correctly—

when I become easier, softer, quieter,

when I learn to hold myself like something breakable

so no one else has to do it.

Still—

I am not chosen.

I am not chosen in the spaces where I waited without saying I was waiting,

I am not chosen in the way I kept showing up anyway,

I am not chosen in the way I turned absence into habit

so it wouldn’t hurt as much.

But it still hurts.

It still hurts like something repeating itself inside my chest—

not a wound, but a rhythm,

not a scream, but a pattern.

And I begin to understand:

I am not chosen because I keep thinking being enoughis something I can perform correctly.

I am not chosen because I keep believingthat if I fold myself just right,

someone will finally keep me unfolded.

But love does not arrive like a test I can pass.

Love either stays

or it doesn’t.

And I—

I am still here, repeating it softly,

like a prayer that forgot who it was meant for:

I am not chosen.I am not chosen.I am not chosen.

Until one day, maybe,

the repetition breaks

instead of me.