Fair

To turn away from signs
That should have been warnings
The way you withdrew
When I needed you near
How your words felt warm
But your actions stayed distant.

Trying to convince myself it was enough
Those fleeting moments of care
The glimpses of the person I mistook you for.

I clung to the hope
That by loving you deeper
You’d someday realize what this was from my side
Would it have been enough?

Everything was poured in
Until nothing remained
Boundaries were bent
Needs set aside
And a version emerged, unrecognizable
Even in moments of self-reflection
Close ones became distant
Priorities shifted
Exams, work, friends—everything forgotten
For a single focus
You
Dreams appeared for the first time
Always seemed to revolve around one figure
Ofc you dumbo who else?

And not everything can be written here
Neither I want to
It feels unjust to all the other moments
Barely even 0.3% of it captured here.
The hope was to receive something equal in return
To be given the same that was offered freely
But did that day ever arrive?
All the fears that once seemed impossible
Each one came to pass.

They say you can’t force someone to love you
The way you truly deserve
And no matter how much you give
It’s never going to be enough for some
For someone who doesn’t know how to receive it
Why did you have to prove them right?

Now, I’m learning to let go,
Not because I stopped loving you,
But because I finally want to start loving myself
But I fail almost every alternate day.

I deserved more than this dependency
Disguised as love.
Looking back at it
It was just a huge dependence
You call it love?
Have some brains you stupid
What a shame.
Someone who was never ready
To offer what I gave so freely.

I’d be lying if I said you are not missed
To deny the absence is felt
Would be a white lie
Not a day passes without a thought—
Or even hours, on days.

Moments arise when the need for a hug
From a certain someone is felt so strong
“I need hugs” - oh I’ve heard this before
Plenty of times I have heard this before
A lot, lot of times
Even from you.

In those moments, weakness takes hold
And I find myself becoming
Weaker than a falling petal in the breeze
And oh, how those moments are despised
And this is perhaps the hardest phase ever.

My cope is that I remind myself
Of all the ways I felt diminished, small,
Of all the times I swallowed my voice
When I should have spoken up.
When others were given a thousand chances
For things so bad,
And I wasn’t given one chance.
And you call it fair?
A thousand for some, none for me?
You call it fair?
You call it love?
Please don’t disrespect that word I beg.
Joseph Cassady’s Rocket Propulsion can make sense,
But not this.

It makes me wonder if I was ever wrong
For drawing all those comparisons
When it was always just an excuse
An excuse that only took up 1% of the hours we spent together
But still, you never once considered the reason behind it
The reason for those insecurities
Do you think I was that stupid?
No, I wasn’t stupid to bring anyone else into it
I always felt so uneasy when it was someone else
And you are fully aware of it, aren’t you?

In the end, every single one of them felt justified
How arrogant of me to hope I’d be wrong
To wish so desperately for this one instance to defy my judgment
Yet even that wish went unanswered
Like all the wishes with you.

Walking away was never about abandoning you
I was slowly, slowly realizing
You were not so who I thought you were
I don’t want you to fall further
In anyone’s eyes, including mine
Quite certain if others knew the truth
You’d be despised
That’s why I keep it all to myself.

And what will happen to the fact
That I still speak so highly of you?
Still, I have a thing to say
That I’m sorry.
Sorry for all the ways I failed to ease your heart
Which even you know was my favorite thing, wasn’t it?
And you’re still prayed for by me every day
Like what I’ve been doing for the past year
Even though you might believe otherwise
That has been the only constant
And will always remain so
Hate that I can’t hate you at all
But this wasn’t the way you should have acted.

I wish things would have been gentler for me
For someone stumbling through it all for the first time
But they weren’t
Why did it happen the way it did
Why it had to unfold like this?
I guess I’ll never know
And in case you are still wondering

Nothing made sense then
Nothing makes sense now
Nothing ever will.
Not even close
Not even a little bit
Not even at all.

---

Disclaimer: This poem is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone is purely coincidental and unintentional.