To Love Her Was to Be Undone

To love her was to be undone — slowly, and with full awareness.

Not by betrayal, nor cruelty,

but by the quiet weight of being misunderstood.

She did not see the ache behind my stillness,

nor the trembling restraint in every word I never said.

She thought me unwell, obsessive perhaps —

but what she called madness was simply this:

I had no self left outside her.

She had become breath. Pulse.

My days moved as her shadow did.

And still, I asked for nothing.

Even when I was burning, I folded my pain gently

so it would not disturb her peace.

She never truly looked —

or maybe she looked through the eyes of others,

who never touched my silence,

never knew how I worshipped her in ways

that felt more like prayer than possession.

So she left — and I let her.

I bore the blame, her doubt, her silence.

If hating me made it easier for her to live,

I gave her that too.

But the wound remains.

Not because she went,

but because she never knew

that someone once loved her

so completely,

he forgot what it meant to be a person

without her.