Hot Air in the Shape of Flattery

I fell in love with your words

when your actions were empty,

‘cause you see, I was feeling bitter and lonely

at a world that continued to reject me.

You made me feel something

when everything else was pain or nothingness,

and god damn me for wanting to feel needed,

because it was just my ego needing to be inflated

by the hot air that billows from your lungs.

And those gasses turned to gaslighting,

yet the lamps that kept burning

couldn’t light the way to my true self.

As I began to feel more lost,

you left me more and more often

on some back shelf,

until I watched you fall into the arms

of someone else.