where the light faded

I’ve been struggling with the meaning of love, trying to understand its similarity with dependency. Lately, I find myself evading my reality by drowning in thoughts of you—of us. I’ve been struggling to comprehend why it’s only easy to fall asleep when I’m thinking of you and nothing else, why I block out my reality, barricaded by daydreams.

I said if I stop thinking, it’ll all end. If I stop centering everything around you—you couldn’t believe me. Now you’re shocked by my recent behaviors, but I said it. Why didn’t you just believe? Am I the bad guy? No… I don’t think.

Sometimes I hear your voice in my head, the way you'd laugh when I overthought everything. And for a second, I want to run back, to be understood like that again. But I remember how understanding turned into expectation, and how love turned into a weight I had to carry alone.

Now you're asking for things I no longer recognize.

Words like space and balance and boundaries spill from your mouth like they were always part of our language.

But I never signed up for love with conditions carved in fine print.

I gave what I had. All of it.

And when I warned you how deep I’d go, how much of me this would take—you nodded. You laughed.

Like it was a line from a love song, not the start of descent.

But I guess the verses hit different when the story turned real, when the beauty faded and asked for more than just admiration or applause but effort.

You say it’s changed.

That I’ve changed.

Maybe I have.

Maybe I’m tired of being told I feel too much.

You said “It’s not working.”

And I said, “Okay.”

Not because I wanted it to end,

but because I knew you didn’t really understand what ending meant to me.

I told you—nothing would be the same after this.

You smiled, thought it was just another line in our little play.

But here we are. Curtain closed.

So tell me, why are you surprised I’m not answering your calls at 2 a.m.?

Why do you still expect to hear my voice when the world gets too loud?

Why do you think I’d still offer you the softest parts of me after you handed them back?

You left.

I let you.

But don’t act like I’m the one who changed the script.

I’m not going to lie

I won’t sit here and twist the truth to make it easier to hate you.

Because we had good times.

And they were real.

Everything was bright and beautiful once, like the world paused just for us.

Laughter that cracked like sunlight through closed blinds.

Touch that made the hours feel weightless.

We lived in moments that felt untouched by time.

But it became dark all too soon.

I look back and I see both things at once

The light that warmed me,

and the shadows that slowly swallowed it whole.

There was a time I thought you saved me.

That love was supposed to feel like falling into something warm after a storm.

But what I mistook for safety was just distraction.

A break in the chaos, not the cure for it.

You didn’t save me—you slowed the bleeding, then disappeared before the wound closed.

And for what it’s worth… I appreciate you.

Truly.

You showed me pieces of love I didn’t know I could feel.

You gave what you could, in the way you knew how.

And for that—I’ll always be grateful.

But I won’t sit still while you try to fold me back into your life when it’s convenient.

I won’t play this tug-of-war where I pull toward love and you pull toward comfort.

I won’t hand over the quiet I’ve earned just because your world’s gotten loud again.

I exist for more than your moment of crisis.

And truth be told

the last time we saw each other, I knew.

You were riding on your loneliness,

eating and dining with your anxiety,

sharing laughs with depression like old friends reunited.

You rode upon your jealousy, parading it like armor,

all while ignoring your sanity as it softly beckoned from the corner.

You looked pale from denial

a kind of colorless that isn’t about the skin but the soul.

And I knew,

that would be the last time we’d ever see each other like that.

Like “us.”

Like anything that resembled who we used to be.

So for the first time

with us

I’m saying no.

I’m saying goodbye.

There are still nights i catch myself reaching for the phone at 2am, muscle memory wrapped in a ghost of hope.

But i stop myself now, not because i don't miss you - but because I'm learning that missing someone does not mean you have to let them back in.

And this time, I mean it in full.

I’m no longer standing in the doorway,

waiting for your shadow to stretch back toward me.

You chose to let go,

and now, I’m choosing to honor that choice.

Not with bitterness,

but with finality.

And yes

as you once said

I will always love you.

But don’t confuse that love for permission.

Don’t mistake it for unconditional.

Because even the deepest wells can run dry

when drawn from too carelessly.

I used to think that love meant always being available—always bending to hold the shape of someone else’s pain.

But now I know

real love doesn’t leave you hollow.

It fills you in ways that make you want to stay with yourself when everyone else walks away.

I don’t regret us.

But I won’t relive us either.

When love asked for more than memory could offer, you ran. But poetry doesn't hold when silence is loud.

Because the version of me that needed you to feel whole is gone.

And in her place stands someone who knows:

Even longing has its limits.

Even hope can overstay its welcome.

I’m not your second chance.

I’m not your safe place to land when the world gets rough.

I’m not your silence-filler or memory-keeper.

I’m what you lost

because you let me go.

And now, I’m choosing to remain gone.

This is my goodbye written in healing, not hate.