After so long, it hurt to meet his gaze
to find only emptiness,
a reflection of all the things they couldn’t say.
The pieces still ache.
She wants him to be happy,
The thought of it twists the knife in her chest.

He had sliced her open with the truth,
a cut too deep to ignore.
It wasn’t the kind of pain she knew how to love,
not the kind she could soothe with time.
She bled herself dry-
not realizing, in her desperation to be whole,
She had cut him too.
She tried to get better,
tried to stitch her wounds shut
in the shape of someone he could love.

Healing doesn’t happen for others,
she didn’t see it then.
She had to stop bleeding for him
start mending for herself.
She had to meet the parts of her
And learn to love them in the way
he never could.

She is still learning.
She did so much,
gave so much of herself
to love him, to love everyone,
she was hollowed out,
Spreading herself thin like a worn-out thread.
he only saw the fraying edges,
the pieces of her she couldn’t keep together.

He couldn’t handle her truth-
truth that she is broken and whole
in ways he refused to see.
she is left here,
grappling with the fact
she couldn’t handle it either.