Because you loved me like I was temporary,
and I stayed like I didn't know better.
Now all that's left of me…
are the pieces you didn't want to keep.
---
They say love is a beautiful thing. That it lifts you. Saves you. Fills you.
But they never talk about the kind that kills you slowly, in ways you can't explain.
The kind that wraps around your ribs like barbed wire and hugs you until you bleed from the inside out.
That was her kind of love. Or at least… the version she gave me.
I loved her in ways I didn't know were possible.
I loved her with the desperation of someone drowning in plain air,
with the kind of loyalty that should've died after the first heartbreak.
But I stayed. God, I stayed.
Because her smile made me believe.
Because her laugh sounded like salvation.
Because when she looked at me, I forgot that I was just a broken boy trying to survive.
But here's the truth no one tells you—
when someone doesn't love you back, they don't just not love you.
They unlove you. Slowly. Quietly.
And then one day, without warning,
they destroy you with a smile and walk away like you were never even a person.
She broke me.
Over and over.
With her words, her silence, her touch.
And I let her.
Because pain, when it comes from the one you love, feels a lot like permission.