You didn’t break me
in one cruel moment.
You broke me in inches—
quietly,
casually,
like it didn’t even matter.
You didn’t raise your voice,
but your absence screamed.
You didn’t slam doors,
but the silence between us
cracked every wall
I built to survive this.
You made me beg
without using words.
Made me starve
in a kitchen full of food.
I was never hungry—
just aching
for something I couldn’t name,
because “being loved”
felt like asking too much.
I watched you
give your attention
to everyone else—
your job,
your hobbies,
your scrolling thumb.
And I sat across from you
with a heart wide open,
unseen,
untouched,
unwanted.
I whispered my pain
in small, careful doses,
hoping you’d meet me halfway—
but you blinked through me
like I was static
on a screen you didn’t bother fixing.
I cried in the shower
so you wouldn’t hear.
I learned how to fall asleep
without goodnight kisses.
I taught myself
how to be okay
with a kind of loneliness
you only feel
when someone is right there
but already gone.
I became a ghost in my own home—
haunting the kitchen
where I cooked for someone
who never asked how I was,
laying in bed
beside someone
who hadn’t touched me
with intention in years.
You didn’t cheat.
You didn’t lie.
You just slowly stopped showing up
in all the ways that count.
And that,
my love,
is the slowest,
cruelest
kind of hurt.
