#wnp

There was this girl

not mine, never mine,

just soft enough to haunt me

and kind enough to keep the wound from healing.

She never chased.

Never asked.

Never begged me to stay.

But just stood there in that quiet way of hers, like a bus stop I kept returning to, even when I knew there were no goddamn buses coming.

I’d vanish for months, crawl into holes, burn myself down to the last nerve, and when I crawled back out, she’d be there with a

hey

or an

I miss you too, and like a fool I’d mistake that for salvation.

Kindness is a dangerous thing for men like me. We take it as a promise. We confuse it with love. We build homes inside it and then complain when the roof leaks.

She never loved me, not the way I needed, not the way a man who keeps breaking needs to be held.

But she never pushed me away either. That’s the trick, you see the women who destroy you aren’t the monsters. They’re the gentle ones. The ones who say take care and mean it.

The ones who let you return without questions, without punishments, without expectations.

Those are the ones who turn your chest into an unfinished room.

And maybe that’s why I keep disappearing. Not because I don’t care.

Hell, I care too much. I care like a drunk grips the bottle even after the glass shatters.

I disappear because if I stay long enough, I’ll hand her the match and ask her to burn me.