I prayed for you.
wrote about you in the dark,
lit a candle,
whispered to the universe, bring him to me.
I built you in my mind before you ever arrived,
wrote love letters to a man who didn’t exist yet,
believed if I was soft enough, patient enough,
you’d find your way to me.
And for a while, you did.
But I mistook presence for permanence,
mistook receiving for being held.
Mistook warmth for love when really,
I was just standing too close to the fire.
And now—
I still want you, but I know better.
You weren’t the right person.
You were just the one I hoped would be.
It wasn’t right person, wrong time.
It wasn’t the cruel hands of fate.
It was just you weren’t meant to be mine.
And maybe that’s growth—
to know I wouldn’t take it back,
not even if you asked me to.
Not as you were, are.
What lingers isn’t the love I imagined,
isn’t the version of us I once held onto.
No—
it’s the heart that beats inside the cage you crawled inside,
the one that laughed in the dirt,
the one who took my picture when I wasn’t looking,
filled my water bottle,
found my toes under the covers—just to remind me he was there.
I miss him.
But I missed him even then.
I missed him when he was right beside me,
missed him in the quiet,
missed him in the dark,
missed him when my tears stained the pillow
and he didn’t know what to do with them.
I’ve met him before, in different faces,
in different hands that held mine loosely,
in different arms that swore they wanted me,
but never enough to stay.
Parallel lines, selfish hearts,
heavy hands that never learned to carry me,
minds that whispered,
you are not enough.
And here’s the thing—
I took myself apart piece by piece,
laid my ribs like stepping stones,
tore my trust into parchment,
drew you a map home,
let my love be the ink, my willingness the compass.
I made the road smooth,
softened the corners,
made sure the path never asked too much of you all at once.
I wanted to light the way,
to keep your demons from finding you in the dark,
to be the warmth you could always walk toward,
never realizing that while I was holding the flame,
I was the one being burned.
And when there was nothing left of me to lay at your feet,
when I had given you the last good thing I had—
you didn’t stop.
Didn’t turn back.
Didn’t even look down.
You just kept walking,
let the pavement crack beneath you,
let me splinter and cave in,
let the ground become rubble beneath your ease.
And in that wreckage, it became clear—
you never really loved me.
You loved how I made you feel,
loved the way I softened the mirror
so you could stomach your own reflection.
You can’t love what you refuse to look at,
And you can’t look at what you spend all your time trying to outrun.
But the cruelest truth?
I wasn’t grieving us.
I was grieving the weight of my own devotion,
mourning the girl who thought she could satiate
someone who had never known hunger.
You never had to choose me.
I was always already there,
breaking myself down into something easier to swallow.
And when I crumbled beneath you,
when my hands were empty,
when my voice turned hoarse from asking for something back—
You left me to clean up the mess.
And so I did.
I gathered the remnants,
held the sharp edges in my palms,
tasted the grit of betrayal between my teeth,
let it settle heavy in my mouth like the sediment in the last drop of wine—
And swallowed.
No more drawing maps for those
who are content being lost.
No more soft landings.
No more bleeding for the bridges they never intend to build.
I let the dust settle,
Let the ink run dry.
Let the silence stretch as long as it needs to.
And when I walked away,
I found myself,
and the road that lay before me… it felt like coming home.
This is powerful, Cait 💕