"In Love With the Idea"
I thought it was love. Because it looked like the movies, felt like the poems, sounded like soft promises whispered in the dark.
But it wasn’t you I loved— it was the story I told myself about you.
You were silence wrapped in skin, a presence without presence. Red flags waved, not in warning, but like banners at a parade I wanted so badly to join.
I carved a safe space between my ribs, made a home of my vulnerability, but you never stepped in. You stood at the threshold, muttering reasons why you couldn’t, while I mistook your distance for depth.
You said you couldn’t talk. I listened harder. You said nothing. I built meaning from the quiet.
God—how foolish I was. Not for loving, but for falling for the idea of love— as if that would be enough to turn absence into affection.
You didn’t break me. I broke myself trying to make your silence sound like something sweet.
And now, I pick through the wreckage, not of you, but of me— of the girl who thought love was supposed to hurt, as long as it felt like something.
@ghostinkpoetry
