Everyone But Me

I know who I am.

I know what I need.

We were young when we fell in love.

You were everything I dreamed of.

Loving you made me whole.

Being beside you once made me happy.

What we had felt rare.

You were all I wanted.

I wanted a life with you—

not one where I disappeared.

We both knew hurt.

I was careful with your heart,

loving you enough to consider how you felt.

I needed you to care that way for me.

Over time, I learned who you were

by watching you enter a room—

needing every eye,

every conversation,

every kind of affection.

I watched you give

what I longed for

to everyone but me.

The hurt began quietly.

I told myself love required patience.

A dance might have been innocent,

but not while I sat alone,

watching you choose a woman I knew

and keep asking her to stay on the floor.

That’s my man, I thought,

as you enjoyed another woman

without seeing—or caring—

what it did to me.

This wasn’t a high school dance.

It was a man showing no respect

for the woman beside him.

You never took the time to know me.

If you had, you would have understood:

when I asked you to refuse something,

I was already uncomfortable,

already insecure,

already asking you to help me feel safe.

Instead, you acted as though

I had ruined your night.

I’ll wear the name.

I would never do that to you.

What you refused to hear wore us down.

You grew so cold I could no longer reach you—

there, but nowhere I could find you,

someone I no longer recognized

or wanted near me.

Why keep me

when it feels as though you don’t even like me?

My world filled with silence.

I needed to know I mattered in yours.

Making me feel loved

was what I trusted you to do.

I told you what I needed.

You stared through me.

My words fell into silence.

The wounds I carry haven’t disappeared.

What I got over was believing your words.

You still turn away.

Nothing has changed.

You are empty toward my pain;

the only thing you feel

is frustration that I brought it up.

I know I’m cold now.

That’s what neglect has done to me.

I still reach for you,

but I trust myself more.

You are my biggest disappointment—

the time I gave you,

the one thing I can never get back.

We did not grow together.

We grew apart.

I was proud of what we built,

of the parts of us that mattered to me.

I deserved more than what you gave emotionally.

What intimacy.

I should have walked away long ago,

but desire kept me from seeing

that you were the problem.

You had already left me.

You never made me your priority.

I only wanted kindness—

You to be my strength when I’m weak.

The way you’ve treated me lately, made the hard times look easy..

I needed security—

something you never gave me.

I never wanted to feel

like I was in your way.

I don’t know what I want.

The us isn’t worth fighting for anymore.

Where did the man I fell in love with go?

I know the difference.

That is what hurts most.

My life