Imperfect Chaos

08/11/2026

TAKE THE CHANCE.

Love too much.
Say the thing.
Make the call.
Take the trip.
Start over.
Believe somebody when your heart tells you there might be something worth believing in.

And if it falls apart?

Let it.

Because I would rather have a life full of
“damn, that hurt”
than a life haunted by
“what if I had?”

I’ve made choices that nearly broke me.
Loved people who couldn’t love me the same way.
Stayed too long.
Left too late.
Trusted the wrong ones.
Ignored my gut.
Started over more times than I ever wanted to.

But every version of me taught the next one something.

So no, I don’t regret having a heart that takes chances.

I’m just learning that taking chances doesn’t mean accepting everything.

I can love deeply
and still have boundaries.

I can hope
and still pay attention.

I can forgive
without giving someone unlimited access to me.

I can want something with my whole damn heart
and still walk away when it costs me too much of myself.

That’s growth.

Not becoming afraid to live because life hurt me.

Not becoming cold because somebody mishandled my softness.

Just becoming wise enough to know the difference between
taking a chance on love
and
gambling myself away for it.

So take chances.

Say how you feel.

Be embarrassingly human.

Love while you have the chance.

Make mistakes.

Change your mind.

Begin again.

But whatever happens…

never make yourself the price you have to pay to keep somebody else. 🖤🥀

08/11/2026

I don’t know why I got another chance
when so many people I loved didn’t.

I don’t know why I’m still here
after all the times I probably shouldn’t have been.
And maybe I’ll never have an answer for that.

But I know I don’t want to waste it.

So I’ll tell the truth about where I’ve been.
The addiction.
The trauma.
The mistakes.
The things that almost destroyed me.
And the person I’m still fighting to become.

Not because I’m proud of every chapter,
but because somebody out there
might be sitting in the middle of their worst one
believing this is where their story ends.

And if they can look at me and think,
“She made it out. Maybe I can too,”
then maybe all this pain gets to become something more
than something that happened to me.

Maybe it becomes a hand reaching backward
for the person still trying to find their way out.

I was given another chance.
I don’t know why.

But I know what I want to do with it. ❤️‍🩹

08/11/2026

Amen

08/05/2026

Facts

07/18/2026

The old me would’ve reached out by now.

Not because I deserved less…
but because I was terrified of being forgotten.

I would’ve sent the text.
Made the call.
Apologized for things that weren’t mine to carry.
Knocked on doors that had already been slammed in my face.

The new me doesn’t.

Not because I stopped caring.
Because I finally started caring about myself.

Silence isn’t always pride.
Sometimes it’s self-respect.

If someone wants to be in my life, they’ll meet me halfway.
I’m done chasing people who watched me run until I collapsed.

The old me would’ve reached out by now.

The new me never will.

And for the first time, that doesn’t feel like losing.

It feels like finally coming home to myself. 🖤

© 2026 Jessica K. | Imperfect Chaos: Poems with Teeth and Hope. All rights reserved. Please do not copy, reproduce, or repost without permission.

07/13/2026

You Didn’t Lose Me in a Day

You thought I’d stay.

Maybe because I always had.

Maybe because every time things fell apart,
I picked up the pieces,
believed the apology,
held onto the version of you
I kept praying would become permanent.

But you never noticed
I was already leaving.

Not with slammed doors.
Not with angry words.

I left in silence.

You didn’t lose me all at once.

You lost me in patterns.

Every lie that asked me to question my own reality.

Every promise that sounded beautiful…
until it became another disappointment.

Every time I begged to be heard
and somehow ended up apologizing instead.

Every time I forgave
without anything really changing.

You thought I was pulling away.

I wasn’t.

I was grieving someone
who was still standing right in front of me.

That’s the kind of loss
no one prepares you for.

When the person you love
doesn’t disappear…

they slowly become someone
you no longer recognize.

I didn’t wake up one morning
and decide to stop loving you.

Love doesn’t die that way.

It erodes.

One broken promise.
One sleepless night.
One accusation.
One cruel word.
One moment of feeling alone
while lying beside the person
who promised you’d never have to be.

Until one day…

I realized
I wasn’t fighting for us anymore.

I was fighting
to keep from losing myself.

And that’s when everything changed.

Because leaving didn’t happen
the day I walked away.

It happened months earlier…

the first time my heart whispered,

“I can’t keep surviving a love that keeps asking me to sacrifice myself.”

I don’t hate you.

I hate what we became.

I hate that loving you
started costing me pieces of myself.

And while you were waiting
for one dramatic goodbye…

you never noticed

I’d already been gone.

⸻

© 2026 Jessica K. | Imperfect Chaos
Poems with Teeth and Hope
All Rights Reserved.

07/13/2026

They warned me:
“Just wait… the doubts come. The nightmares come. Your mind will mess with you.”

And I thought… nah.
I’ve lived through too much to be haunted.

But listen.
This week my brain tried it.
Nightmares. Doubts. That old fear of becoming my old self.

I wake up soaked
like my body time-traveled,
like my skin still knows the fluorescent lights,
the locked doors,
the “don’t become a statistic” prayers.

And it’s not because I’m close to failing.
It’s because I’m close to mattering.

I’m in a life I actually fought for.

And that’s why it’s scary now, right?
Because now I have something to lose.
A future. A purpose. A reason.

Now I want impact.
Now I want a life
that doesn’t end in “almost.”

So yeah, fear has been loud.
But progress is louder.

I’m not going backwards.
I’m not romanticizing destruction.
I’m not letting my past bully my present.

I’d rather be scared and becoming
than comfortable and dying

And I’d rather shake while I build
than smile while I burn.

© 2026 Jessica K. | Imperfect Chaos
Poems with Teeth And Hope
All Rights Reserved.

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07/13/2026