Performance Review

Performance Review

So this was it.

This was the miracle.

The promise.

The alignment.

All those glowing prophecies

with my name folded inside them

like a golden ticket—

were lies.

Everyone has their people.

Their chosen.

Their favorites wrapped in invisible thread.

And me?

I was the extra chair at the table.

The polite smile.

The tolerated presence.

They faked their gentleness.

Rehearsed their warmth.

Every kindness had fine print.

And it has to be my fault, right?

For believing.

The first one I trusted—

the one I swore was different—

was only measuring what I could give.

I mistook hunger for love.

Mistook observation for care.

Mistook proximity for belonging.

I was devotion with no return policy.

A sympathetic pet.

A living gauge of “at least we’re not that.”

They siphoned my hope like fuel.

Borrowed my dreams

to redecorate their own futures.

They kept me—not out of love—

but for optics.

For face.

For something to reap

from what little I sowed.

They mock me for wanting to be special.

Laugh with strangers

about my audacity

to crave being chosen

fully, wholly, without condition.

They turned my life into a stage.

And I danced.

Oh, I danced.

Smiling through dust.

Brushing off falls.

Counting wins like proof of worth.

Because I thought the victories

would drown out the losses.

But the losses were all they archived.

They catalogued my stumbles,

labeled me with them,

filed me under “less.”

When I shared my struggles,

it wasn’t confusion I saw in their eyes.

It was irritation.

Now I know.

It’s not that you don’t know how to console.

You just cannot

do that

for me.