sometimes when you upset me i go back to her page. i study the angle of her jaw, the way she smiles while she lip syncs, and i feel a curious kind of admiration. she’s gorgeous, i get why you liked her. it hurts that you could hold both of us in your palm, decide one, then treat me like whatever was left.

i scroll. i mindlessly tap through her posts, the rhythm of her life moving forward. part of me wants to compare, to measure my laugh against hers, my skin against hers.. and part of me knows comparison is cruel and endless.

i wish i’d never found her account. maybe i would’ve been happier in ignorance. and yet i’m oddly grateful too: grateful i saw the locked door you pretended didn’t exist, grateful for the ugly, painful, clarifying light of truth. our story has rips, but at least i know where one started.

sometimes i imagine meeting her. not as rivals, but as witnesses. i picture us sitting across from each other, trading stories, stitching together the ways you repeated yourself and the ways you changed. i wonder if she’d nod in recognition or tilt her head in surprise. i think we’d both leave with a clearer picture of who you really are, and maybe that’s the only kind of comfort left. there’s no access to healing. it’s like pulling teeth when i search for answers from you and i’m aware it isn’t your favorite topic.

when those thoughts come, i almost flinch at myself. ashamed that my mind wanders there, that i let jealousy shape itself into fantasy. it feels raw, unpolished, something i shouldn’t admit out loud. but it’s the truth of loving you. messy, heavy, and hard to carry in silence.

each time i revisit it, it unsettles me a little more. and that scares me. i can’t tell if the sharpness is dulling with time, or if with every glance at her face and name, some small part of what i feel for you quietly shifts. that is my fear.