Wings, Whiskey, and the Wisdom of Letting Go

I am not your muse.

I am not the midnight epiphany that slips between your ribs at 3 a.m., nor your half-finished love song scribbled on a napkin you left to disintegrate in the laundry.

I am not the echo in your voice memo app, or the character you wrote to feel more whole.

I am the hurricane that unbuttons your safe little world.

The thunderclap that makes you flinch.

The echo in your ribcage when silence swells too loud.

Once, I leaned in.

I offered softness like it was an endless resource.

I said yes with my entire being — every cell, every pulse, every sacred drop of belief in something more.

Back when I mistook sacrifice for love, when I thought becoming small was a noble kind of giving.

Back when I confused your indifference for mystery, and pirouetted on the tightrope of your inconsistent affection — thinking it was partnership.

It wasn’t.

This butterfly has battle scars.

Do you remember?

The way your eyes glazed over while I tried to explain how loneliness doesn’t always look like being alone — that it can sit in the same room with you, whispering in my ear while you scrolled through your feed.

Do you remember when I asked for more — and your silence swallowed me whole?

That was the moment your love turned from a river to a breadcrumb trail I chased toward nothing.

I went hungry in a relationship that looked full.

Let me say this slowly, so there’s no room left for confusion:

I will not shrink to fit inside your comfort zones.

I will not twist my flame into something manageable, something pretty.

I will not turn down my light so your shadows feel safer.

I have kissed chaos and called it growth.

I have cried into tile floors and come up stronger.

I have wept into solitude’s arms — and found that she cradles better than anyone ever did.

I have laughed with the kind of joy that takes over your whole body — that belly-deep, throw-your-head-back, nearly-pee-yourself kind of laughter that only comes after heartbreak tries and fails to ruin you.

Yes, I know how to unclog my own sink.

Yes, I’ve installed a shelf while sipping wine, in fuzzy socks, yelling at an Allen wrench like it was an ex I finally outgrew.

And yes, love, I still look like poetry.

Even in sweatpants. Even in a hoodie stained with coffee and yesterday’s dreams.

Even with mascara smudged like war paint.

Especially then.

I am both divine and ridiculous.

A walking contradiction wrapped in glitter and grit.

I’ll talk about quantum physics right after I explain why astrology is real to me.

I burn sage in the morning and shake my ass to Cardi B by afternoon.

I pray, I swear, I bleed authenticity — and I’ve danced barefoot on shards of my former self, just to prove I could rise again.

So let’s stop pretending.

You didn’t love me.

You loved the idea of me.

The packaged version. The party-trick charm. The woman who said, “It’s okay” when it wasn’t, because it was easier than explaining why you weren’t showing up.

You wanted something digestible.

Something soft-edged and convenient.

Something that looked good next to you.

But I am not a museum piece.

I do not gather dust.

I am not for your display case or your curated Instagram feed.

I am a movement.

A full-body yes to life.

A one-woman rebellion with chipped nail polish and big opinions.

An anthem with hips and holy fury.

A thunderstorm that learned how to flirt and never apologize for her volume.

And you?

You were a footnote.

A chapter.

A necessary detour in the novel of me.

A lesson carved into the skin I’ve since outgrown.

You were the turning point that made me look in the mirror and whisper: Never again.

This second first time you tried to come back?

Was the last.

I see now that the only thing that changed wasn’t you.

It was me.

I remembered who I was before I tried to fit into your narrative.

I remembered the power in my wings.

Not the delicate flutter of some fragile insect, but the thunderous, wild span of something born to rise.

So go ahead — clutch your comfort.

Snuggle up in the predictable.

Revisit the women who haven’t yet discovered their worth — the ones still learning that love isn’t earned by self-erasure.

I’ll be over here:

Messy.

Radiant.

Reckless in the best ways.

Soft, but never swallowable.

Holding joy like it’s sacred and grief like it’s honest.

Dancing in my kitchen with no audience but the moonlight.

Writing my own story.

Living it loudly.

And when they ask where I went,

when they wonder where the woman who once dimmed herself to fit you has gone —

Tell them this:

She soared.