What Did I Do

Not looking for love.

Then falling for you.

Wanting to go wherever you went.

Happy being by your side.

Your friends.

The weekends you planned.

Me going along.

Believing this was us.

Made to believe

we wanted the same thing.

Truly believing it.

Then a new town.

A house to make a home.

You getting grouchy.

Someone coming out

I hadn’t seen before.

Or maybe I had.

Maybe loving you

made it easier not to see.

Not knowing anymore.

Different tastes.

Our interests drifting apart.

Still staying by your side.

By the time I understood—

never about me.

Already in too deep.

Already loving you.

Putting myself into that house.

Something to build on.

Something put away.

A life we could enjoy someday.

Me going without.

You gambling in secret.

Another thing to find out.

Another hurt to put away.

Still wanting you.

Still waiting for your touch.

Never wanting somebody else.

Even the pain shared

creates another wound.

Telling you what hurts.

Your anger.

Then silence.

You going to sleep.

Me beside you.

Knowing you knew.

So writing.

Everything spilling into a text.

Trying to reach you.

You not even reading it.

Outside this house.

Everybody’s hero.

Watching you stand beside others.

Back home.

Me keeping things up.

Looking beside me.

Nobody there.

At the table.

Another joke about me.

Everybody laughing.

Me remembering

I’d already asked you to stop.

Still loving you.

Still believing someday.

Then the mirror.

Realizing I’d gotten lost in time.

A beautiful young woman

grown older waiting.

Your criticism in my head.

Questioning what I used to like

about myself.

You still had me.

Through all of that.

Until you didn’t.

The fire I kept feeding.

Nothing left to give it.

Love still there.

But lying beside you.

Not wanting another day like this.

I still want to leave,

but the door is open now—

and I’m the one

blocking it.