u/EngineeringApart8239

The way you spoke of her that night, did not just wound, it changed my sight.

Because she stood beside my pain, when life felt heavy, cold, and strained.

She held me up through darker days, like family found in broken ways.

So hearing hatred leave your tongue, felt cruel, immature, and young.

What shook me more was all the rage, you still carried across the age

For someone who did nothing more, than stand by me when I was torn.

I thought that life had made you wise, that fatherhood had changed your eyes.

That having a daughter of your own, would teach you how respect is shown.

Instead I heard resentment speak, a kind of anger dark and weak.

And something in me finally knew, there was no safety left in you.

Maybe this is closure, not fire, not revenge, not blame.

Just a quiet truth I can’t defend, love should not decay to shame.

I never wished your world to break, or prayed someday you would feel my ache.

I only hoped you would learn to heal, the wounds beneath the things you feel.

But I can’t stay where anger grows and dignity is lost in blows.

So this will be my last goodbye, no more reaching, no more why.

I hope one day your heart finds peace, and all this bitterness will cease.

And I hope somewhere down the line, I will heal what you once broke in mine.

We were never gentle people,

not with ourselves,

not with each other.

You carried storms in your mouth,

I carried oceans in my chest,

and somehow we kept calling it love

while drowning differently.

You pushed,

I chased.

I cried,

you mocked.

Then somehow, in the ruins,

we still reached for each other

like bruised hands searching warmth.

We turned longing into arguments,

desire into warfare,

silence into punishment.

And still

between the wreckage,

there were moments so soft

they almost made the chaos feel holy.

Maybe that was our tragedy.

Not that we didn’t feel enough.

But that we felt everything

without ever learning

how to hold it safely.

You touch the parts

I try to hide,

so I turn cold

instead of staying beside.

Not because

I do not care,

but love feels dangerous

when someone stays there.

I fear being known,

I fear being weak,

so I wound with silence

instead of what I seek.

And every time

I make you stray,

it is fear

not hate

that makes me push you away.

I don’t know how to give what you keep asking for.

So I push it back at you,

harder than it came.

You write about presence like it’s easy.

Like I can just stay without losing my breath.

I can’t.

When your words get too close,

I remember every story you once told me.

I throw them back so I don’t have to feel small.

I can't

I’m not built for this.

For poems, for feelings, for staying after I’ve taken what I wanted.

I disappear because it’s safer than staying and failing you.

I can't

You keep reaching.

I keep hurting you so you’ll stop.

I don’t hate you.

I just don’t know how to love you without breaking something

either you, or whatever little I have left of myself.

I don’t know if it was fate,

I don’t know if it was destiny,

or if we simply had to learn

how deeply love can hurt

when two wounded people meet too early.

When we found each other,

there was no peace,

only longing,

confusion,

and mirrors held too close to old scars.

We could not trust fully.

Our egos were too fragile,

our pride too loud,

our fears too practiced.

And maybe that was the tragedy:

we both wanted to hear

“You are the only one,”

while being too terrified

to say it first.

But I still said it. Again and again, through all the chaos, all the mixed signals, all the hurt.

You just never believed that someone could love you without leaving eventually.