I gave you the softest parts of me—
not to be etched with your absence,
but to be held like something sacred.
You mistook my silence for surrender,
my patience for permission
to translate my worth
into your dialect of deficiency.
I kept shrinking,
hoping you'd stop asking me to stretch
into shapes that broke me.
But even silence thundered
when it was you echoing inside it.
You wanted me holy—
while you played god with my peace.
But where was the audit?
Where was the reckoning
for all the times I arrived
as more than you deserved
and still left with less than I needed?
I begged the universe for balance,
and it gave me you—
a lesson wrapped in longing,
a storm disguised as stillness.
I wore almost like a second skin.
until it blistered:
almost loved,
almost safe,
almost enough.
Now, I gather the fragments—
not to rebuild you,
but to remember me.
Because healing isn’t ornamental,
but it’s mine.
And this time,
I won’t apologize
for the fire
that finally burned you out of me.
I’m tired of drowning
in the shape of someone else’s healing,
tired of being the altar
where guilt is laid like offerings.
So I take—
not out of want,
but necessity.
To stop giving to ghosts
who never learned how to stay.
This time,
I light the match,
watch the echoes burn.
september 2025