You

you
were supposed to hold
our conversations
like fragile glass
close to your chest,
away from other hands.

but instead,
you opened them
like a window,
letting her breeze
enter a room
that was meant
for just us.

you let her read
my messages
the way people
read weather forecasts
predicting storms
in a sky
she never stood under.

she called me controlling,
and suddenly
my name tasted different
from your mouth.
like you had replaced
your own eyes
with hers.

you forgot
that she didn’t know
my pauses,
my cracked laughter,
the way my voice
softened
right before when you
used to take my name.

she wasn’t the one
who felt the tremble
in my hands
when I told you things
I’d never said aloud.

but you let her
rewrite the map
of who I was.

and I learned
how it feels
to stand in a spotlight
I never asked for,
with invisible people
shaping shadows
bigger than me.

you spent nights
with her
not romantically,
but consistently.
quietly.
comfortably.
as if her presence
was gravity
and I
was something
you kept floating away from.

even the man
she was going to marry
noticed the pull
you had toward her
and yet somehow
I was the one
made to feel
out of place.

if she had an
particular interest,
you swore
that was your interest area too.
but if I liked anything,
you found
thousand tiny reasons
to dislike
something you never
looked at long enough
to understand.

and still,
I stayed.
loving you.
while you loved
the version of me
she described.

and then the line
the one that still burns:

“someone like you
will show up again
on a dating app.”

bold
like a torch,
cowardly
like the flame
you used
to burn us down.

and as if that
wasn’t enough

there were the nights.
the mild chill.
the quiet hum
of the city.
the kind of weather
that made people
crave company.

my intuition
always whispered
your truths
before you spoke them.

and when I finally
saw the messages
the ones where you told her
you wanted to drink
on a cold night
something inside me
finally exhaled
in recognition.

because you never
said that to me.
not once.
not in all the nights
that felt perfect
for us.
not in all the pauses
where you could have
invited me closer.

your romantic nights
were never mine.
your softness
was never mine.
your spontaneous wants
were never mine.

I only got
the version of you
edited for survival
not the version
that texted her
with warmth
that should have
been directed
toward the person
you said
you were choosing.

and I’m tired.

tired
of this generation
where someone’s heart
always has
a backup.
a spare.
a shadow.
an almost.

where loyalty
is seasonal,
and attention
is disposable.

maybe that’s why
her words
always mattered
more than mine.

maybe that’s why
you let her
define the shape
of us.

maybe she saw
what I refused
to admit
that we weren’t
building love,
we were assembling
a slow heartbreak
with borrowed tools.

so now,
as strangers
at the edge
of everything
we couldn’t hold together

let me finally
praise her
the way you always did.

let me honour
her clarity,
her intuition,
her unwavering place
in your heart.

because in the end
she was the only one
who understood
the truth of us.

and maybe,
just maybe,
she was right.

her suggestion
to move on
was the only thing
that ever truly
saved us.