Not Your Shadow
I stepped out of your script and breathed.
You liked me best when I stayed behind you,
quiet as a coat on a chair,
laughing at your jokes
before I even got them.
﹁﹂
You called it “support.”
You called it “we’re a team.”
But somehow the team
Was always your name on the jersey.
﹁﹂
I learned the choreography:
nod here, soften there,
Shrink my opinions down
to bite-size, swallowable things.
﹁﹂
When I got loud
not angry, just honest
Your face would change
like I’d broken a rule
You never bothered to explain.
﹁﹂
So I practiced being a shadow.
Shadows don’t ask for clarity.
Shadows don’t need credit.
Shadows don’t leave.
﹁﹂
Until one day I saw myself
in a store window,
walking two steps behind you,
And I hated the shape I’d agreed to be.
﹁﹂
I went home and tried saying “no”
in the mirror
It came out shaky,
more breath than sound.
﹁﹂
But it was mine.
I stepped out of your outline,
into my own light,
and the world didn’t end
It just got quiet,
Like space finally opened up
to fit me.
About the Creator
Milan Milic
Hi, I’m Milan. I write about love, fear, money, and everything in between — wherever inspiration goes. My brain doesn’t stick to one genre.
Keep reading
More stories from Milan Milic and writers in Poets and other communities.
FPS: The Last Flame Challenge Winners
Welcome to our first Winners Announcement of the year and to the final challenge in the Fall Poetry Series. The Last Flame invited writers to sit with endings, using fire as a central image to consider what remains when something burns out: ash, warmth, memory, silence, or the faint promise of what comes next. The strongest pieces treated endings as gradual rather than sudden, allowing them to flicker, dim, and linger.
By Vocal Curation Team2 days ago in Resources
Comments (3)
I 100% relate to this: "But somehow the team/Was always your name on the jersey" It's interesting, the reflection, I know I avoided looking at myself after going through something similar to what you described here, to avoid seeing the truth of what the relationship was doing to me The shadow part reminded me of Peter Pan? I think it was, who had to sew his shadow back onto his feet. Someone once told me that our shadows show our greatest fears, and to get in touch with those, we can challenge ourselves by facing them.
Quiet strength is a good way to describe this, I also love it.
I love the quiet strength of this reclamation of self.