just let me in

maybe weeks.

There’s a strange man in the house

who looks just like you,

but he’s mean,

and he doesn’t love me.

If you were here,

I wasn’t sharpening knives.

I wasn’t asking you to explain yourself

or rewrite the past

or stand trial for my feelings.

I was just saying I miss you.

I miss the way you used to be present

before every sentence became a shield.

Before you heard accusation

in a confession of longing.

Before my ache turned into something

you had to defeat.

I say I miss you

and you hear you’re failing.

So you brace.

You defend.

You dig in like the goal is survival,

not connection.

And suddenly I’m not missing you anymore

I’m managing you.

I’m watching your jaw tighten.

I’m choosing my words like they’re live wires.

I’m regretting opening my mouth

because what I wanted was closeness

and what I got was a fucking courtroom.

Do you know how lonely that is?

To miss someone

who is still right there

to reach for them

and get pushed back by explanations

you didn’t ask for?

I didn’t need you to be innocent.

I didn’t need you to be right.

I needed you to sit with me

in the absence.

I needed you to say,

“I know. I miss you too.”

Or hold me.

Or at least not turn my longing

into something you had to protect yourself from.

But you can’t stop defending.

Even when no one is attacking.

Even when all I’m offering

is the truth of how empty it feels

without you.

So now missing you hurts twice

once because you’re gone in the ways that matter,

and again because saying it out loud

costs me safety.

I’m exhausted from wanting you

and being treated like that want

is a threat.

I was just saying I miss you.

I wasn’t asking you to armor up.

I was asking you to come closer.

Somewhere on your phone

there’s a little glowing thread

called don’t fuck this up

like the danger was me.

Like I was the fragile thing.

Like you needed instructions

on how not to lose me.

Meanwhile I was handing you the map.

Step by step.

Word by word.

Here’s where it hurts.

Here’s where to stop.

Here’s what makes me feel safe.

Here’s how to hold me

when I’m shaking instead of arguing.

I circled the cliffs in red.

I put up signs.

I begged you to slow down.

And you still drove straight off.

So now it’s not about

don’t fuck this up anymore.

That ship sank.

This is about wreckage.

This is about the trust

you cracked open and left bleeding

while you defended yourself

like I was the threat.

You were supposed to be the protector.

That’s who I saw when I let you close.

The place my body could finally rest.

The man I thought would step in front of the hurt

not become it.

But you didn’t protect me.

You pressed harder.

You argued louder.

You kept going when I was crying,

when I was scared,

when I was asking you to stop

like it was a foreign language.

Do you know what it does to a person

to realize the one they ran to for safety

is the one they need safety from?

I don’t trust you the same.

I can’t.

Because now my nervous system knows

you won’t stop just because I’m breaking.

And that knowledge doesn’t disappear

because you’re sorry later.

So who protects me now?

Because it isn’t you.

Not yet.

Not while I’m still bracing

every time I open my mouth.

Not while your need to be right

outweighs my need to feel safe.

You don’t get to plan how not to fuck this up

while actively fucking it up

in real time.

If there’s any chance left

it isn’t in advice threads or intentions.

It’s in whether you can sit

with the fact

that you became the attacker

and didn’t stop

when I begged you to.

And rebuilding trust doesn’t start with words.

It starts with restraint.

With silence.

With choosing my safety

over your ego

every single time.

Because I already gave you the map.

And you don’t get to ask me

to draw it again

while I’m still bleeding

I used to think love meant endurance.

That if I could just explain myself better,

softer,

calmer,

smaller

you’d finally stop hurting me.

I thought if I cried right,

if I begged politely,

if I folded my pain into something palatable,

you’d recognize me as human again.

But you never stop.

You don’t pause when my voice shakes.

You don’t soften when I’m breaking.

You don’t reach for me

when fear crawls into my chest

and whispers that I need safety now.

You lean in.

You argue harder.

You correct my pain like it’s a spelling error.

You turn my boundaries into evidence

that I’m the problem.

And somewhere along the way,

I stopped asking to be understood

and started asking for mercy.

That’s the moment it clicked.

Love doesn’t make you afraid to speak.

Love doesn’t punish honesty.

Love doesn’t watch someone crumble

and call it “resolving conflict.”

You say you’re defending yourself,

but I’m the only one bleeding.

You say I’m attacking,

but I came unarmed

just a heart in my hands,

offering it like a truce.

I see now that you don’t stop

because stopping would mean admitting

that you like the upper hand more than my safety.

That being right matters more than my nervous system.

That my pain is a cost you’re willing to pay.

And I’m done paying it for you.

I’m not too much.

I’m not crazy.

I’m not the storm you pretend I am

so you don’t have to look at yourself.

I am someone who deserved to be held

and learned instead

how to brace for impact.

But not anymore.

I see you now.

And I see me too.

I didn’t come to you with a weapon.

I came with my chest open,

hands shaking,

trying to say this hurts

without apologizing for existing.

And you turned it into a fucking trial.

Every feeling I bring you

gets cross-examined.

Tone dissected.

Words twisted.

Intent put on the stand

until I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

I say I’m hurting

and you hear an attack.

So you swing back harder,

and harder,

until I’m not explaining

I’m begging.

You don’t hold me.

You don’t soften.

You don’t stop.

You loom.

You press.

You keep going

while I’m crying,

while my voice breaks,

while my body is screaming enough

in the only language it has left.

I start measuring my words

like landmines.

I start shrinking my feelings

so you don’t detonate.

I start fearing the man

I wanted comfort from.

Do you know how fucked up it is

to ask someone you love

to please stop hurting you

and watch them continue anyway?

I’m not dramatic.

I’m not manipulative.

I’m not “too sensitive.”

I am a person

being emotionally cornered

until mercy feels like something

I have to earn.

I say stop

and you hear win.

I say please

and you hear weak.

And something in me learns

quietly, disastrously

that my pain is not a reason for you to stop,

it’s a reason for you to press harder.

That’s when love turns into fear.

That’s when honesty becomes dangerous.

That’s when I start wondering

why the fuck

my tears aren’t enough

into the pauses between your excuses,

curling up in the time it takes you

to look past me

instead of at me.

You touch me like a chore you forgot to cancel.

Like I’m a notification you swipe away

and promise you’ll answer later

(knowing damn well you won’t).

I learned how to fall asleep

wanting you.

That’s a fucked up skill to master.

Gold star for me.

You say it’s timing.

You say it’s stress.

You say it’s not rejection.

But my body doesn’t speak fluent bullshit

it just hears no

over and over

until it starts to rot.

I offered myself gently.

Then clearly.

Then desperately.

Then quietly, because humiliation has a volume

and I finally learned how to turn it down.

Now I lie next to you

feeling like an afterthought

that learned how to breathe.

You don’t get to tell me

this isn’t about me

when I’m the one

carrying the weight of being unwanted

like it’s my fucking job.

I didn’t want perfection.

I wanted hunger.

I wanted proof that I exist

outside of convenience

and habit

and whatever the hell you tell yourself

so you can sleep.

I’m tired of being patient.

I’m tired of being understanding.

I’m tired of loving someone

who keeps teaching me

how easy I am to put down.

And the worst part?

I still want you.

Which feels like betrayal

My long-snouted, pointy-faced, 1 brain-celled gremlin.

I didn’t know a damn thing about bull terriers when I brought you home.

You were supposed to be Seth’s problem.

just a dog I picked up because I thought it’d fix something

(or at least distract me from the dumpster fire I was living in).

But the second you looked up at me with that stupidly fucking face,

like a legally-blind anteater judging my life choices,

you claimed me.

You were built like a shark glued to a hoagie sandwich:

all snout, pure aerodynamic menace,

zero awareness of personal space.

And somehow, that made you perfect.

You were gentle in the weirdest, funniest ways

nudging me with that long-ass nose

like you were checking if your emotional support human

was still functioning.

You loved with headbutts,

accidental uppercuts,

and that soft little sigh you’d do

when you curled your snoot under my head.

You saved me more times than anyone knows.

You stayed on nights when I couldn’t breathe,

when everything hurt,

when everyone else dipped out or failed me.

You curled up against me like your weird little body

was the only thing keeping mine stitched together.

I owe you my life.

Not because you did anything big

but because you were there.

Every damn day.

Choosing me.

Protecting me.

Sniffing my depression away with that comically long face.

And now you’re tired.

And now you’re slipping.

And I hate it, but I’m here.

Just like you were always here for me.

You were my girl,

my unexpected soulmate,

my pointy-nosed attorney-at-law who defended me

against every charge life threw at my dumb ass.

Rest now, Ruca.

I’ll carry you.

He says the world is cruel,

He says fate kicked him in the ribs again.

I nod.

Business is business.

He says, “So you're finally gonna leave me the fuck alone, right?”

Like he isn’t praying I’ll argue.

Like he isn’t dangling the door open, hoping I trip into it.

I say sure.

He chokes.

Business is business.

He doesn't beg.

He demands.

He doesn't say he misses me.

He says I ruined him.

He says I changed.

He says why can’t you be who you used to be?

He wants the ghost of the girl who bled herself quiet for him.

He wants the version of me who swallowed every storm and called it love.

He wants me to fall apart so he doesn't have to.

Business is business.

He throws knives carved out of memory.

He spits blame like venom.

He pretends he’s untouched while shaking like a wet match.

He wants loyalty without tenderness,

possession without vulnerability,

devotion without accountability.

He says I'm cold, so I stay warm.

He says I'm weak, so I stand firm.

He says I don't care, so I care quietly.

He says I'm the problem, so I stop solving him.

And suddenly he hates the silence he asked for.

Business is business.

He doesn’t say “I love you.”

He smirks like he doesn’t know what that word tastes like.

He says I won’t change.

He says I'm the one who broke us.

He says I let go first.

And when I finally loosen the grip,

he reaches out like he didn't slap my hands off the rope first.

He wants me until I want him.

He wants distance until I give it.

He wants control, not connection.

Business is business.

I'm not holy for surviving us.

I'm feral for still wanting the version of him that's buried somewhere under ego and terror and Gemini static.

I love him like a bruise loves pressure.

I love him like a knife loves ribs.

I love him like a fool and a god and a ghost.

But I’m done bleeding for free.

Business is business.

And if he ever wakes up and finally feels the crater I left,

he'll call it betrayal before he calls it grief.

I love you, idiot.

I loved us like a myth.

But business is business.

Not the ones that make sense,

just the ones that help me breathe.

That maybe you hated me enough

to stop loving me.

That maybe you got free.

But some nights, I hear your name

whispered like a dare,

or spoken through someone else’s mouth

and I feel that old panic crawl back up my throat.

He says he talks to you.

And I want to laugh.

Or scream.

Or believe him.

Because part of me still wants to think

you’d never really leave.

You were the only person who ever looked at me

like I wasn’t what the world made me.

You saw the kid still trapped inside the wreck,

and you reached for her.

And I flinched.

Every time.

You didn’t deserve what I turned you into.

You were gentle,

so I called you weak.

You were patient,

so I called you obsessed.

You were kind,

so I called you manipulative.

I needed a reason not to feel guilty

for not feeling enough.

And by the end,

you’d become everything I accused you of.

Not because you were,

but because I needed you to be.

You learned the shape of my cruelty

just to survive it.

Now I live with that version of you

the one I built.

The one who never forgives me.

And maybe she shouldn’t.

Maybe that’s what love looks like

when it finally curdles:

a ghost that keeps you company

because no one else will.

Onviously I couldnt say yes, whats the alternative, no?? That would be a bold faced lie..

I wonder if silence was the worst answer of all...

I will physically remove myself from you

You're not afraid that I'll stumble

You're afraid you're going to plummet

And hit the ground harder

Than I ever loved you

Im trying to set you down gently

But no matter how hard you hit the ground

You'll see who's wait down there

To pick you up

Ill be far out of sight

Why wont you get off this ride

In the shallow end

Why must this prophecy be self fulfilled

Even you know

Those arent angels seeing past your sins

The demons see them clearly

And you are the devil

It handed you yourself.

I never claimed a God

never swore allegiance

to anyone in the sky.

But every time he walked away

every time he dropped my heart like trash

and I tore my own skin

trying to crawl back inside myself

for safety

I prayed.

Not politely.

I begged.

I screamed into whatever listens

when hell cracks open in your chest.

I asked for strength for him.

The courage to turn around.

The spine to stay

the love to fight

the clarity to stop running from what we were

what I was

what we could’ve become.

And one day

whatever‑or‑whoever was out there

answered.

Not with him.

Not with revival.

Not with some shining return.

But with a truth sharp enough

to slice every illusion clean through:

I cannot give him

what he already has and refuses to use.

All those prayers I threw at the universe?

They circled back

like wolves

with my name in their teeth.

And what they dropped at my feet

wasn’t him healed

or us saved.

It was strength.

Mine.

The kind I should’ve never needed

to find this late

but thank whatever power heard me

that I finally did.

Because without it

my life was a cruel joke

a punchline written in blood and hope.

And with it

I finally stood up.

Not because I stopped loving him

but because I started loving me

more than I loved

waiting for him to rise.

I didn’t leave the person I loved most.

I honored the person who loved hardest.

I chose the only soul

who showed up in the end:

CONFUSE MY GRIEF FOR LONGING

I AM NOT WISHING FOR YOU

I AM BURYING THE MYTH OF YOU

YOU THINK I’M BREAKING?

NO.

I AM UN-LEARNING YOU

LIKE A BAD HABIT

LIKE A POISON I GOT TOO USED TO SWALLOWING

LIKE A GOD I MISTAKENLY PRAYED TO

BECAUSE YOU STARED AT ME WITH EYES

THAT PROMISED SALVATION

WHILE YOUR HANDS BUILT A COFFIN AROUND ME

YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME

YOU LOST THE FANTASY

OF SOMEONE WHO WOULD WAIT

FOREVER

WHILE YOU HID INSIDE YOUR OWN COWARDICE

AND CALLED IT “PROCESSING”

I DON’T WANT YOU BACK

I WANT MYSELF BACK

I WANT THE GIRL WHO BELIEVED

LOYALTY COULD SAVE ANYTHING

EVEN A MAN WHO WOULDN’T SAVE HIMSELF

I WANT THE VERSION OF ME

WHO DIDN’T YET KNOW

THAT SOMETIMES LOVE ISN’T NOBLE

SOMETIMES IT’S JUST

A SLOW

BEAUTIFUL

SUFFOCATION

AND GUESS WHAT

I’M DONE DYING QUIETLY

YOU DON’T GET TO HOVER IN MY CHEST

LIKE A HALF-REMEMBERED APOLOGY

YOU DON’T GET TO BE THE WOUND AND THE BANDAGE

YOU DON’T GET TO BE THE FIRE AND THE WATER

YOU DON’T GET TO BE THE FUCKING MIRACLE

AND THE REASON I STOPPED BELIEVING IN MIRACLES

THIS ISN’T A LOVE STORY

THIS IS A GODDAMN EXORCISM

AND I AM WRENCHING YOU OUT

ROOTS, TEETH, MEMORY AND ALL

NOT BECAUSE I HATE YOU

BUT BECAUSE I FINALLY LOVE ME

MORE THAN I LOVE

THE IDEA OF YOU

ULTIMATELY GETTING YOUR SHIT TOGETHER

I AM NOT WAITING FOR YOUR “SOMEDAY”

I AM TAKING BACK RIGHT NOW

AND IF YOU EVER COME BACK

HOPING I KEPT THE DOOR OPEN

HOPING I SAVED YOU A PLACE

HOPING I’M STILL YOUR SAFETY NET

THERE WILL BE NOTHING LEFT OF ME

FOR YOU TO LAND ON

JUST ASHES

AND A WOMAN WHO LEARNED

THAT SOMETIMES

LETTING GO ISN’T LOSS

you begged for distance

you swore you needed air

then why the hell are you

still breathing mine

You ripped the cord

and then stayed tangled

like you wanted the break

but not the consequences

You wanted freedom

but you left the cage door open

and kept coming back

to rattle it

just so I’d look at you

You said separation

like it was supposed to be salvation

but you only meant

you didn’t want to fucking try anymore

you wanted the pain without the work

the devotion without the responsibility

the power without the commitment

Coward dressed as confused

running while standing still

pulling the pin

then acting shocked

when it fucking explodes

If you want out

be out

Leave.

Walk.

Go.

Cut the cord clean

and bleed somewhere else

Stop haunting me

if you’re the one

who chose death

mouth full of smoke and reasons and whatever lie feels easiest today

but he keeps circling the same wreck

won’t touch it

won’t walk away

just sits there like maybe staring long enough counts as healing

keeps that car like a splinter under skin

not enough pain to scream

just enough to remember

an excuse tucked in metal and paperwork

thin little thread he acts like he doesn’t feel tightening every time my name hits air

and yeah

there’s a way back

stupid simple

quiet things

small bravery that looks like picking up pieces instead of throwing them

but he looks at that softness like it's the hardest thing in the world

like love was a mountain

not a hand held out

not socks on the floor and choosing to care

so he drinks

because drunk is easier than honest

easier than steady hands

easier than seeing where he let it fall apart

and if he’s so scared of the hurt

why grab it every morning like a ritual

why sit in the fire he swears he doesn’t feel

why stay in the ghost of a life he keeps pretending he buried

maybe because some part of him knows

there’s nothing left to haunt but himself.

doors don’t stay open forever

She picks up.

Every time she does, it feels like trespassing.

Her breath on the line tastes like mercy I didn’t earn.

I try to sound like I used to

sharp, charming, half-alive

but everything I say drips sour.

The room spins.

I keep talking just to hear proof that I still exist.

I know I’m lying.

I know she knows.

The words keep falling out anyway,

slurred prayers to a god I don’t believe in.

I tell her she ruined me,

because it’s easier than admitting I already came pre-broken.

She’s quiet.

That silence feels like judgment,

and I can’t stand it,

so I start swinging at ghosts.

There’s a moment

always

where I almost say I’m sorry.

Then pride claws its way up my throat

and spits instead.

I call her names that taste like ash.

I talk about the ring, the car, the money,

because numbers hurt less than missing her.

The truth?

I just want her to scream back.

Anger sounds closer to love than quiet does.

When the phone dies,

I stare at my reflection in the dark window.

It looks like someone halfway erased.

I tell myself she’s poison.

That she’s the reason the world hums wrong.

But when the liquor wears off,

all I see is my own outline

fading like smoke.

I try to remember her laugh.

He calls, and the air goes rancid.

The sound of him crawls under my skin like mold.

My name comes out of his mouth wrong

too wet, too alive.

I hold the phone like a wound,

like it might bite if I let go.

He says love like a bruise spreading,

and I forget which of us started bleeding first.

He’s all slur and gasoline now.

His words sag under the weight of their own sickness.

Every “baby” tastes like rust.

He asks if I still want him.

I don’t.

But the lie sits on my tongue like a cracked tooth,

and I can’t spit it out.

I want to scrape him off me,

but he’s buried too deep

under fingernails, behind my ribs,

in the spaces between what I meant and what I said.

Some nights I dream his breath back into the room.

It fogs the windows,

rearranges the furniture,

starts whispering apologies in my voice.

I wake up shaking,

mouth full of his name and the taste of pennies.

There’s no difference anymore

between craving and mourning.

He’s a phantom I keep feeding

just to watch it die again.

Now there’s nothing.

Not even anger.

Just the faint hum of something that used to matter,

like the ghost of a song I can’t remember the words to.

I tell myself I’m clean.

But he’s still there

in the static,

in the pulse,

beneath my nails,