Giving It Away

I told myself I’m fine now
I say it like it’s settled
Like the cold in this room
Is something I chose

I learned how to sleep through the quiet
How to breathe without waiting
But my body still listens
Like you might say something

You never asked me to change
I just did
I smoothed the edges
So you wouldn’t notice the weight

I became easier to hold
By holding less
I called it patience
But it felt like leaving myself

I thought we were moving together
Turns out I was counting alone
You had your finger on the moment
I had my eyes closed

Do you know what you took from me
Or was I giving it away
Do you know what you meant to me
Or was that never the same

I keep asking it quietly
Like it might sound different
But it never does

I don’t hate you for the distance
I just hate that I learned it
I don’t blame you for the silence
I stayed inside it

I was in love with the effort
With the version of us that could exist
I was loyal to the feeling
Not the truth of it

There were nights I felt chosen
Just enough to stay
Just enough to keep hoping
It would land another way

But wanting isn’t the same as being wanted
And I know that now
I know that now

Do you know what you took from me
Or was I giving it away
Do you know what you meant to me
Or was that never the same

I keep asking it quietly
Like it might sound different
But it never does

I don’t replay the good parts
They come on their own
In the space before sleep
When I’m almost alone

I see you in habits
In words I don’t use anymore
In the way I pull back
Before I ask for more

I’m not asking you to come back
I’m not asking you to stay
I just needed to say it
Out loud this way

I’ve learned to live beside it
The memory, the cost
Some things don’t leave you
They just change shape and stop

So I’ll keep breathing through it
I’ll keep naming what’s true
I won’t disappear into loving
What never loved me too

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