You Wanted This

You wanted this.
Not the tears, not the silence—
but the ending.
The open door.
The echo of footsteps leaving.
And for a while,
I stayed standing in the ruins,
still setting a place for you at a table
you’d already abandoned.

I begged the past to answer.
I folded memories like laundry,
hoping they’d still fit.
But love doesn’t live in a house
where one person’s already gone.

I didn’t utterly break us.
You just stopped building.
Stopped reaching.
And I wore the weight of it,
thinking if I loved hard enough,
you might feel it again.
You didn’t.

And that’s okay now.
Because I finally see it—
freedom wearing my own name,
a sunrise that doesn’t ask a teacher’s permission to rise.

You wanted this.
And now,
so do I.

Not because I stopped loving,
but because I started living
without waiting
for you to come back.

You can keep the deafening silence.
I’ll take the joyful freedom.
You can have the past—
I’m making room
for someone that stays and builds.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.