I'm tired

I stay awake at night and look up at the stars, wondering what's wrong with me. i think i'm afraid of the answer. i don't want to be faced with the cold, bitter truth that this is who i will always be. i don't want to face the girl i could have been if i had only lived differently. i can't blame anyone else. i can't blame my mother. i know her days were blackened ash and thorns. but why couldn't you have made me good enough for you to love me as i am? i owe her my life, yet she extinguishes the stars in my eyes and the hope in my heart with just one breath. i can't hate you, but i can't love you either. maybe i'm a dog and your love is the wound i keep licking open. i don't think that it will ever heal. it will continue widening, expanding, and consuming more of me with each passing day. at what point will i become the wound itself and not the owner of my own skin? will i become whole one day? i'm not a child anymore. i don't think i ever was. sleeping is hard recently as whenever it is dark and my head is resting on the pillow, i can hear the rumble of my pulse beneath my ears. it sounds like footsteps on gravel. maybe it means i'm growing up, that my years are dragging me by the wrist, but i can't stand to hear this dirty proof that i'm still alive. please. tell me i'm more than what i couldn't do. i can't find any joy in being alive. why does surviving have to feel like this? why couldn't it have been me instead? i have so many regrets.