I thought you were the one.
You walked into my life like spring after a long drought, and for a moment, everything in me softened. The butterflies weren't just nervous flutters; they were tiny revolutions, waking up parts of me I thought had withered for good. For the first time in years, the hollowness inside me didn't ache so loud. The darkness I had made peace with finally felt like a place I could rest without fear.
I've always known loneliness like a worn-out coat I couldn't take off. I wore it through the seasons, hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone would see past it. When I met you, I believed you were the one who would help me shed it. I let myself believe you would bring lightness. I let myself hope.
But loving you has felt like carrying water in my hands; no matter how tightly I held on, it always slipped through.
You said you loved me, but your love felt like a ghost. Present in word, but never in action. I asked for flowers, just flowers, and you said you didn't see the point. But to me, they were never just flowers. They were soft. They were small beauties in a world that sometimes feels too harsh. They were how I knew someone thought of me when I wasn't in the room.
But you never saw it.
Being with you became a full-time job where I was the only one clocking in. Every conversation felt like I was pulling teeth, or worse, patching wounds I didn't cause. I missed the lightness, the simple questions like what's your favorite color, what songs make you cry, what dreams keep you up at night. With you, it was always heavy. Always layered in things unsaid.
When I asked what we were, you said you weren't ready.
When I asked you to choose me, you made it seem like I was asking the world.
But I wasn't. I was only asking for a seat at the table of your heart.
Now, I sit with the silence and it doesn't sting like it used to. Your absence has become a quiet I've grown used to. Whether you text or don't, whether you call or disappear, I no longer hold my breath waiting.
You never asked me my favorite color. And I suppose that's what hurts most, you never cared enough to know the small things. You were too busy expecting me to heal you, to carry you, to complete you, when all I ever needed was to be seen.
And then he came along.
A man with kind eyes and unspoken understanding. He wanted to buy me ice cream just because it was sunny and he knew I liked chocolate. He opened doors not out of obligation but out of instinct. He watched my face when I laughed too loud, like it was his favorite movie. He didn't wait for me to ask; his heart showed up before mine even reached for his.
He got excited about the sparkle in my eyes when I talked about stars. We planned stargazing not to impress me but just to be near whatever made me light up. He didn't ask for pieces of me; he waited gently, and I gave them willingly.
And in those moments, I realized the truth that so many of us take too long to learn:
I wasn't asking for too much.
I was asking the wrong person.
Leaving you wasn't easy. Loving you took everything. But I've come to understand that some people don't know how to hold love without breaking it. And I refuse to keep handing my heart to hands that only know how to close.
Maybe one day, you'll see a picture of me, really smiling, not that polite smile I used to wear around you. The one that glows from the inside. Maybe then you'll remember how I loved you. How I tried. How I stayed.
Maybe then you'll understand that love should never feel like labor.
And maybe, just maybe, the memory of the girl who once asked for flowers will remind you that she never needed them, she just needed you to try.
But I've stopped asking now.
And that is how I found peace in someone else's kindness.
You bought this all to yourself.
Breathe.