You didn’t leave with a bang.
No huge fight.
No final goodbye.
You just faded,
like fog through the door,
and I stood there still calling your name
like that meant anything anymore.
We planned everything.
Tattoos.
Marriage.
Kids.
You picked out clothes for me,
sent me rings,
said I’d be your husband one day.
You told me you wanted to melt into me,
to become one,
like we weren’t even separate people.
You used to talk like forever was already here,
and I believed you.
Every word.
You pinned futures to boards.
Names for our daughters.
Outfits you imagined me wearing.
And it all felt real,
like we were building something,
like you meant it.
Then one day
you just stopped.
Not all at once,
but in pieces,
like love leaking through your hands.
And I was too scared to call it what it was.
"I love you" became "ily2."
Affection turned into routine.
Presence became absence
I had to pretend wasn’t happening.
I stayed.
I made jokes to keep you close,
bit my tongue when I wanted to yell,
softened when I should have walked,
waited where your warmth used to be.
But all I found was a ghost
of who you used to be with me.
And then I saw it.
Those boards.
Gone.
No warning.
Just gone.
I told myself it was fine,
but my hands shook,
and I cried like a kid,
like something inside me finally gave out.
You didn’t reject me.
You just stopped choosing me,
bit by bit,
until there was nothing left
except me,
still holding on
to something you already let die.
Now I'm here,
trying to sit with what is left.
This ache.
This confusion.
This slow death of a future we promised each other.
And I still wonder,
was I real to you,
or just a soft place to land
until you were ready to disappear?
I still love you.
I probably always will.
But I cannot keep chasing warmth
from a flame you stopped feeding.
You didn't end us with cruelty.
You ended us with silence.
With slow fading.
With the quiet hope
that I would be the one to make the goodbye.
