The Language Of Almost

You loved me like a metaphor —

all meaning, no memory,

a ghost story you tell yourself to fall asleep,

a trauma podcast on repeat, sponsored by guilt

with a fine print disclaimer that somewhere in the blank spaces,

love might be hiding —

buried under your vintage damage,

wrapped in old cassette tape wounds.

I became your emotional epidermis —

you tattooed your chaos with fresh needles and ancient inks,

expecting me to erase centuries of hurt

with the patience of a saint

and the silence of a man who's been drowning since birth.

I’m tired.

Tired of playing your therapist-with-benefits,

a pit stop on your healing highway,

a skeleton closet with no door,

a man made of spine and silence,

holding the gravity of your storms

while my heart sinks in bile, begging for a lifeboat.

You said,

“You’re the most real thing I’ve ever known.”

But you held me like a fire exit —

comforting to know,

never meant to be opened.

You treated my care like a rental —

cheap when convenient,

expensive when broken.

You wanted the editor-approved, print-ready manuscript of me,

not the scratched, scarred drafts written in spilled whiskey and late-night regrets.

You wanted my depth,

so long as you didn’t have to drown in it.

You weren’t looking for a man —

you were looking for a voiceless echo

to applaud your survival

while bleeding unheard.

Because me —

I come with unfiltered pain,

a goddamn museum of abandonment —

family portraits carved in betrayal,

a life spent being useful,

but never enough.

You want me to “understand” your fears?

Darling, I’m married to mine.

They drink from my cup,

sleep in my bed,

laugh at my endless attempts at sanity.

I am the overthink,

the spiraling black hole,

the “what if,” the “why now,” the “fuck everything.”

You say I trigger you —

but you were the loaded gun,

and I was just trying to unload the bullets from the cartridge.

You said I bring out your wounds —

but I’ve bled through yours and mine

and still got blamed

for dripping like acid rain on cracked skin.

And now you ask if I’ll stay —

like I haven’t overstayed

in every life that ever mattered,

like a stain they never wash

but still blame for the stink.

You didn’t love me.

You loved the mirage of being understood

by someone who wouldn’t leave,

while rehearsing your exit lines in the mirror.

You loved the idea of me —

the poetry, the promise,

the possibility of being seen

without ever looking back.

But I’m done being a mirror

for someone else’s broken self-worth.

I want to be held,

not cautiously caressed like brittle ruins,

chosen,

not studied like a dysfunctional anomaly,

loved —

not pitied back into a pretentious existence.

So here’s my final act of love:

Not a plea. Not a poem.

Just a full stop.

Keep your metaphors.

I’ve outgrown the language of almost.

I won’t haunt you.

I won’t hate you.

I won’t hope for closure.

I’ve deleted the drafts,

burned the edits,

and left the stage mid-line.

No rage. No echo.

Just absence —

the kind that doesn’t knock twice.

And if you ever remember me,

make it brief.

I won’t stop to check.

Because, darling —

some exits aren’t meant for curtain calls.