To The Ones They Loved Before

They loved.

Again and again —

until even their bones had muscle memory for leaving.

And now,

as age settles like dust behind the eyes,

they rewrite history

with the precision of someone

trying to forget themselves

by blaming you.

Decades of exchanging fluids and delusions.

Calling orgasms "chemistry"

and abandonment issues "sparks."

Hands mistaken for lifelines.

Mouths mistaken for meaning.

And now, they sit atop polite postmortems:

"None of them were even a 9 on 10."

"Not one of them was worth it."

"I’m glad I walked out."

As if they ever fucking flew.

Let’s set the record straight —

because they won’t:

No one climbs inside you out of pity.

No one fucks you like that

because you were "mid."

No one cries into your bedsheets

because they’re bored.

They wanted you.

Deeply.

Desperately.

Dangerously.

And now they rewrite it

like it was a mercy fuck

on a charity weekend —

because owning their willingness to bleed

feels too much like weakness.

To the people they loved before —

no, you weren’t all innocent.

Some of you were manipulative.

Some were cruel.

Some wore charm in public

and sharp teeth in bed.

Let’s not crown every ghost.

Some deserved to be forgotten —

but not rewritten.

Because there’s a difference

between being a mistake

and being erased

for convenience.

And them?

They didn’t “outgrow” you.

They outgrew the version of themselves

that needed you.

Or worse —

the version of themselves

you saw too clearly.

That’s what stung.

Not your flaws.

Not your job.

Not your weight.

It was the fact

you saw beneath the performance

before they had edited it.

Now they move like curated empathy manuals —

polished, polite, emotionally vegan.

They call it “standards.”

It’s intimacy

with a no-refund policy.

They want fire

that doesn’t scorch their ego.

They want touch

that doesn’t smudge the illusion.

They want love

that doesn’t require laundering the sheets twice.

And when someone says,

“I’m not here to impress,”

they malfunction.

Because if you’re not dancing for their approval,

how do they feel taller?

If you’re not nervous,

how do they feel rare?

If you don’t beg for worth,

how do they avoid proving theirs?

They loved you.

And now pretend

you were a malfunction

in their otherwise immaculate timeline.

You were the one they wrote letters to.

The one they said,

"I've never felt this safe with."

Now you’re a shrug.

A lesson.

A “holy shit, that phase.”

But you?

Let’s not canonize you either.

You were needy.

You ignored red flags.

You used their affection

like anesthesia for your own ache.

You broke things

trying to feel unbroken.

Let’s own that.

This isn’t a poem of praise.

It’s a burial for the lies

you both told yourselves

to make bad love sound beautiful.

Truth be told —

None of you were perfect.

Some of you were poison.

Some were survival

with tools that healed no one.

But all of you were real.

And real should never be deleted

just because it didn’t get to stay.

So to all the people they loved before —

You weren’t a 6.

You weren’t a detour.

You weren’t a fucking “almost.”

You were the fire

they walked into

with wet matches —

and blamed the smoke.

And one day,

they’ll meet someone

who sees the whole script

and doesn’t flinch.

And in that moment,

they’ll realize:

They weren’t intimidating.

They were exhausting.

Not rare.

Just inconveniently basic.

Not hard to love —

just addicted

to being adored

by people who didn’t know better.

And you?

You’ll have healed just about enough,

for them to not recognize themselves

even in your memory.

They’ll whisper your name

in the quietest corner of their head

just to feel something —

but won’t dare say it out loud.

Because saying it

would mean admitting

they once meant it too.

So let this be the final gift:

They wanted to be unforgettable?

Let them rot

in your past

with the lights off

and the door sealed shut.

That’s immortality too.