You dreamed me in candlelight,
soft edges, no shadow, no spine;
a shape to fill the hollows
of your unfinished self.
Not a woman,
but a whisper of one.

You named me gentle before I spoke,
kind before I doubted,
yours before I breathed.

I stayed quiet while you wrote
the story you wanted me to live in;
a love with no clauses,
no agency, no weight.
A devotion with doll-joints,
pliant and smiling.

But I was never a mirror.
I cracked the glass
by simply being real.

You called it betrayal
when I stepped outside the frame.
You wept for the ruin
of your castle of mist
and blamed the wind.

But I was not the storm.
I was the truth.
The quiet, unbeautiful, necessary truth.
I never left you.
You just never saw me;
only your hope
wearing my skin.

© fey (24/05/25)