Raquelle

You don’t get to make me your mission.

I’m not here to be saved, cleaned up, or managed.

When you say you feel “responsible” for me, it doesn’t sound sweet—it sounds like control. Like ownership. Like ego dressed up as care.

I didn’t ask for that.

I wanted something real. Something equal.

~~~~~~~

But I’ve watched you let other girls’ names pop up, stories slide across your screen like I didn’t see. Like I wouldn’t feel it.

And I stayed quiet. I made myself small. I made excuses for you.

That was my mistake.

You were never protecting me.

I was protecting you—from the truth.

From the parts of yourself you didn’t want to admit: the part that wanted attention elsewhere. The part that liked holding power over someone soft.

The part that says “responsibility” when you mean “control.”

I’m not your burden.

I’m not your little project.

And I’m not staying silent anymore.

I’m done performing gratitude for crumbs.

I hate a man whose gaze is never mine.

Eyes that say mine in private,

but wander like they’re starving in public.

Is it lust?

Or does love always feel like quiet

humiliation?

I don’t feel safe beside him—

just small, invisible,

and half a second from crying in a bathroom stall

I hate a man who can’t keep his eyes still.

Is it lust, or is that what love looks like to him?

I never feel at peace beside him —

not public, not in private.

Everywhere we go,

I feel the ache of being watched,

I spray my wrist with something expensive before every breakdown.

If I'm going to fall apart,

I feel like I swallowed the moon.

I'm glowing, but I'm empty.

I'm powerful, but I'm tired.

Everything feels like its pulling away from me

or toward me

too fast to hold.

Is this healing

light a candle. Don't speak. Just stare at the flame until you remember:

Your silence is a language.

Your absence has weight.

You don't have to preform to exist.

You are are real.

You are here.

You never raised your voice, but you lowered my worth. I became careful, quiet, curated.

You called it love.

I call it erasure.

I know you thought love looked like sacrifice. You kept bleeding for people who only offered you silence. But it wasn't you'r fault.

I keep trying to feel real again.

But everything still taste like the past.