A Star Collapsed

I thought I could trick myself into staying.
"He knows me...he just doesn't say it" I said to myself so many times.

But I know it's a lie and it's sour on my lips no matter the number of repetitions.
He looks at me and he sees the girl he met and he hasn't noticed I'm not her anymore.
He looks at me and I know what he sees; I used to see her too staring back at me in the mirror.
She was wide-eyed, on the brink of collapse.
She was a star just before it burns out- brilliantly bright and seconds from demise.
She was hollow inside but she smiled and listened and wasn't too loud.
She blended, learned to camouflage herself to stay safe.
She hid the bruises on her soul with a light voice the way someone might cover bruises on their skin with make up.
She did the same with the scars, slipping her foot on top of the drop of blood that fell on the floor to hide it.
I can see her so clearly, it's almost like she's here beside me and not just an echo of the past.

But that's not who I am anymore.
The girl in the mirror now is too tired to hide the pain.
She is the star after collapse-the black hole, big and vast and unknowable-starving to fill the void.
She isn't hollow anymore, she smiles, not as often but more true, and she's louder now; she's making herself known.
She blends in the way a shadow does, only when everything is dark; other than that she stands out like a dark silhouette on sun drenched concrete.
She doesn't hide the pain, she just hopes no one asks about the bruises and the scars; but if they do she tells them.
She doesn't have to step on drops of blood anymore because she stopped bleeding; now she just has to stop picking at the scabs.

I wonder sometimes how people who say they know me can look at me and not see this new person, this one who is healing and who isn't ashamed of the past.
I wonder how people who say they care about me never saw how the girl before was a shell.
I wonder how he talks to me and thinks he's so close to my heart.
I wonder how to tell him that we're strangers now and it doesn't really even hurt.