The Well I Poured From

Some stories don’t end neatly. They unravel while you’re still inside them.

I keep asking myself, How did I let this go on for so long?

The question echoes louder every time.

I think the hardest part to face is that I couldn’t let go because I couldn’t admit the complete defeat of this relationship.

If I called it failure, then I had to face what that said about me—about how much I was willing to lose just to feel chosen.

So I kept trying.

Kept fixing.

Kept loving in the dark, hoping light would find us.

It never did.

Now I’m standing here, halfway between grief and relief, seeing the wreckage for what it is.

Not punishment. Not fate.

Just that moment I finally stopped lying to myself.

---

Growing Apart

I poured from a well he never meant to fill.

For a long time, I called that love. I mistook exhaustion for effort and silence for depth. I built altars to patience, believing that if I stayed long enough, he might learn to pray beside me. He never did.

Growing apart does not happen all at once. It begins in the pauses between words, in the laughter that no longer lands. The stories shrink, the rooms widen, and what once felt like gravity begins to feel like drift. You start to measure affection by its absence.

Eventually, you stop trying to fix what was never broken in you. The bond reveals itself not as sacred, but as familiar. He needed the mirror more than the man. I was the mirror.

There is no bitterness in that truth, only release. Love is not proof of goodness; it is the practice of reciprocity. What cannot return your light is not your home.

I still honor what was beautiful. It taught me how to see without distortion, how to choose stillness over survival, clarity over longing.

The well is quiet now.

This time, it is mine.

---

He Loved That I Loved Him

I didn’t stumble into him.
I chose him, clear-eyed, steady,
hoping choice would mean
I mattered.

He liked that.
The being chosen.
The way I held him in light
he didn’t earn.

He mistook attention
for affection.
I mistook silence
for depth.

He wanted to be adored.
I wanted to be seen.

So we danced,
not in rhythm,
but in need.

I bent.
Shrank.
Poured from a well
he never meant to fill.

He watched me give
and called it love.
I watched him take
and called it hope.

What I needed,
he never asked.
What he needed,
I kept giving.

Until the ache grew louder
than the illusion.
Until I saw it:
He was never in love with me.
He was in love
that I loved him.

There’s a difference.
And that difference
cost me years.

Yet clarity has its own mercy.
It doesn’t fix what broke.
It names it.
And in that naming,
I begin again.

No anger.
No regret.
Only the quiet relief
of leaving a room
where I was never met.

I no longer chase
what cannot hold me.
I no longer beg
to be reflected.

I have love.
Mine.

Unreturned, perhaps.
Yet never wasted.

It taught me
the line between hunger and truth.

Now I eat at my own table,
with my own hands,
in my own name.

And that, finally,
is enough.