When I First Saw You (Clearly)

Live your blissfully ignorant life.
Carry on as if the damage you caused will never circle back to you.
Pretend the universe does not keep receipts.

For a long time, I did not understand what you were doing to me.
I kept swallowing crumbs, convincing myself they were meals,
while you laughed at how easy it was to keep me starving.

I trusted you. I prayed for you. I held space for you.
You never gave me a second thought.

You tossed me aside for anyone who offered you the smallest flicker of attention.
And when that flicker dimmed, you came back to me— because I was useful, available, the one who would keep showing up
even when you would not.

You could not bother with my needs.
Not once.
Not ever.

I was never going to be enough for someone like you.
Not because of anything lacking in me, but because you wanted something “pure,” (definition unclear)
something easy, something shallow enough not to reflect your own depths back at you.

That is fine. People with small minds do small things.

I once thought the cosmos lived behind your brow.
I thought you held ancient wisdom, something bright,
something worth standing close to.

I was wrong.
Spectacularly wrong.

You see through your biases. Through a coloniser’s comfort.
I was never someone you chose— I was a consolation prize you curated to feel “woke.”

I tried to be your friend.
I really did.
But friendship requires presence, respect, and effort; you offered none of those.
You treated me like a parasite, something embarrassing, something to hide.

And then you wondered why I shut down.

When I said, “I cannot talk about this,”
You demanded the confrontation anyway— not for healing, because you needed closure
to have a better relationship with your new girlfriend.

Meanwhile, I was in therapy twice a week, trying to become stable enough to function at all, while you were fucking someone else the whole time. Lying to us both.

And after all that, you dared to ask me to rip myself open so you could feel better with someone new. You even wanted the conversation to happen over messages so you would not have to feel uncomfortable.

The audacity.

So here it is:
I do hope you are happy.
Truly.
Be well.
Be blessed.
Be whatever version of whole you are capable of being with your much-younger girlfriend.

But do not ever delude yourself into thinking you were my friend.

You used me when no one else was available. You took what I gave freely, ignored my pain, and called it a connection.

You were never my safe place. You were the storm.

Good luck out there.