The Day I Found Out

I had just returned—

not just from a place,

but from a space where I was finally beginning

to breathe without you.

I had given us distance,

hoping it would bring me peace,

maybe even bring you clarity.

But you were still there,

threading your words through mine,

soft enough to keep me doubting,

close enough to keep me hoping.

I tried to leave,

more times than I can count.

But each time I slipped away,

you reached—

with just enough tenderness

to pull me back in.

A photo.

A caption.

A moment dressed in gold and certainty—

one I was never meant to witness.

And beside you—her,

in quiet elegance,

wearing a glow that said

you had moved on

long before I ever let go.

No message.

No explanation.

Just a silence that sealed itself shut

and a promise

that was never mine to break.

How long had you known?

How long had you planned a life

while I was still trying to heal from us?

Did she know?

About me?

About the months you lingered,

about the words you fed me

while building a future elsewhere?

I stood there,

still carrying your maybe,

while you gave her your forever.

And I?

I wasn’t even worth a goodbye.

But I see it now.

You didn’t stay out of love—

you stayed for comfort,

for the power in knowing I would.

You used my heart

like a quiet place to rest

before moving on.

And though I deserved

a truth spoken out loud,

I’ve found my closure

in your silence.

Because this—

this was never about love.

You never chose me.

And now—

with no announcement,

no final scene,

no need for revenge or a reckoning—

I choose myself.

And that choice

is the most honest ending

we’ll ever have.

but tried to keep mine caged

You called me your soul—

like it was a gift,

like I should be grateful

to be owned, not uplifted.

You spoke in poetry to tighten your hold.

Fed me sweet lines,

then turned them cold—

with silence, with blame,

with bruises I buried

and carried like shame.

You always came back.

But never to stay—

just to calm the storm

you sent my way.

And I, so desperate for connection,

mistook your return for redemption.

But peace isn’t found in a kiss after pain.

Love doesn’t circle

just to wound again.

You didn’t return for me—

you came back for your reign.

You crossed my boundaries

like they were yours to bend.

Twisted “no” into “maybe,”

then silence again.

You wanted access, not affection—

possession, not protection.

And I—I let you.

Because I thought pain meant depth.

Because I believed that if I gave more,

bent more,

bled more—

you’d finally stay with both hands open,

not keeping score.

But now I see.

You didn’t love me.

You held me.

You caged me.

You told me I was your soul,

but tried to reshape me.

What you wanted

was a mirror to mold—

a reflection that stayed

as your grip took hold.

I’m done gathering the pieces you broke.

Done breathing through the words you never spoke.

If you come back again,

you won’t find the girl who waited.

No door left ajar,

no hope reinstated.

I’ve gathered what you scattered,

and from the wreckage, made something whole.

A quiet life. A softer soul—

but not one you’ll ever know.

I’m still gentle—

but only for those who see me,

not for those who leave me bleeding.

I’ve learned:

Love doesn’t move in endless loops.

And pain isn’t proof.

Just because I stayed

doesn’t mean you were right.

Doesn’t mean you were worthy of the fight.

Doesn’t mean I belonged in your hands.

I stayed because I hoped—

because I saw light in your shadow.

Because I didn’t yet know

that leaving is also love,

and sometimes, the bravest kind.

But not anymore.

I don’t confuse endurance with devotion.

I don’t name survival “love” in motion.

And I will never again shrink to fit

inside a version of love

where I must quit being me.

So no—

you don’t get to call it love

just because I stayed.

I stayed because I loved you deeply.

But now,

I’m learning to love myself

in ways you never could.

A Reckoning After 11 and a Half Years

I gave you years—

not just numbers on a calendar,

but seasons etched into me.

Birthdays, breakdowns,

quiet mornings, silent wars.

I stitched you into my future

while you rewrote the ending behind closed doors.

You told me I was your everything—

then made me feel like nothing

for asking to be seen.

You held me like I was precious,

but only when I folded myself

small enough to fit between your fingers.

Was it love?

Or control, wrapped in roses?

Was it need? Possession?

Or was I just convenient—

a mirror you could twist

to reflect the parts of you you missed?

You made me question

my memory, my feelings, my worth.

You turned apologies into riddles,

and made me say sorry

just for being hurt.

But I am not your puppet.

Not your project.

Not your shelter

if you keep setting fires inside me.

And still, I stayed.

Because love—real love—is patient, right?

Because I thought pain meant passion.

Because I thought if I healed you,

I might be whole, too.

But love shouldn’t leave bruises

in places no one can see.

Love shouldn’t make you

doubt your own voice, your own sanity.

And now—

I love myself more

than the hope of who you might’ve become.

I choose me.

The version of me who won’t trade peace for proximity,

who won’t flinch at affection

or shrink just to feel safe.

Maybe you loved me—

in the only way you knew how.

But that love was not enough.

It was never enough.

And it never will be.

I deserved more.

And now—

I’m becoming more.

More than you’ll ever be.

Love so crazy

I wasn’t afraid to die

Because I had tasted life in your embrace

If you set my soul on fire

We both burned

If you drove me insane

We were both mad

Intoxicated in love

Drunk in a world that pretends to be sane

Love like that does not get lost

Not in the maddening crowd

Not in the madness of a suburban home

With picture-perfect kids and a white picket fence

Beloved, how will you forget the scent of rain that reminds you of my drenched hair

Beloved, how will you forget the smell of the blazing sun that reminds you of my sweat on your lips

Beloved, will it ever suffice to merely see me

Write my name a thousand times

In vain.

I dare you to live

And die every day.

Because living is not living without you.

And if I am dying

Then we are both, no more.

In a single moment, red turned to white

love turned into nothing

faded in memories

A tomb-less grave

A markless cemetery

Of every moment that made us

From we to you

I waved the white flag

Surrendered to the void

So vast and empty

No place for love

No hiding place for hate

Only meaningless moments

People in motion

Words that don’t make a sound

Promises unbounded

Flown away with each passing day

I stepped away

Widow of an empty casket

I lay us to rest

Every night, I buried you

I buried the burning red

that used to fuel the flame

Of endless desire that once burned for you

Now a cool breeze envelops the night sky

I shiver at the breeze

As I turn on betrayal avenue

It houses an empty home

Where walls have crumbled at the mercy of the world

Torn apart by vandals, stained with graffiti, profanity, slander

I see it decaying and I step away

For there is nothing but dust and decay

Everywhere you lay, my once beloved.

I was your princess, and you were my prince,

I was your queen, and you were my king.

You ruled my heart,

Once upon a time, you loved me, and I loved you.

When did you become the villain, my beloved?

When did you rob me of my crown?

When did you poison me,

When did you curse me to a life

Of eternal sleep,

Of beauty lost in the crowd?

With you, I never needed a throne,

With you, I never wanted a castle.

Your embrace was my palace, and your heart, my throne.

For I ruled your heart as a queen,

And that is where I called home.

Once I was your princess, and you my prince,

Once upon a time, I loved you, and you loved me.

You took over my kingdom disguised as a lover,

You broke down my defenses,

You poisoned my lands,

And burned my home.

What a love story for the ages, my king,

Where the queen never lived happily ever after,

Because the king never loved his queen.

What a love story, my lover.

I waited for my knight in shining armor to save me,

But you came with a black shroud.

While my eyes were closed, you stabbed me,

Covered my beaten body, and left me on a pedestal for all to see.

What happens when a queen loves her king.

My eyes opened like a newborn baby

Ready for a world of love

I had only heard of love

In movies, books and my sister's heartbreaks

It was pure, it was innocent, it was naive

& then you came along and offered me the world, your world

You laid for me a bed of roses and I kept walking on thorns

But though it hurt, I told myself, that sometimes love was painful

& you would heal my wounds

Little did I know, you came to destroy my world

Yours was burning & you rose from the ashes

To burn my heart

Because yours wanted to get even with destiny

So I became collateral damage

When I learned to fly away from you,

You built me a cage. trapped me in all of our memories

When I broke free, you put me in jail

A jail, full of your betrayal, so that I may never escape my burning heart

Just as yours had been burning for ages

May god never curse a lover, with a lover like you

That come with honey dipped words

Only to stab, the very moment I closed my eyes

Like those long gone from this world

Unwilling to see the deception

Behind every devil pretending to be a man

Let my eyes remain closed, the door locked shut & the curtains drawn

For it is a bad world my love

It's best I stay in my cage, where I sing to live but where no prying hands

Can come stab me or lay a bed of roses filled with thorns of your lies.

The language I learned to love in,

Is no longer uttered on my lips

It has no recipient

It has no end

Sometimes, by mistake when I speak

In your language and sing your songs

I catch my heart skipping beats

And dreaming of love songs

And a life that I once dreamt of

Is faded like words washed away on a piece of

Paper erased in time

Like an insult, if your name is uttered

It exists neither here nor there,

No pride, no love, no gain

Numb to your love and name

A reflex perhaps

The words I learned to love in

Remind me that once upon a time

You were mine

I halt my heart and remember to not love you

In your language or mine

Because those words

That twists the rs and ys

Insisting the I’s

Remind me of every conversation

I had with you when

I joined the r’s, y’s and I’s

As I rested my lips on your lips

The words rolled away from my tongue

To form the words

That I only uttered where I ended and you began

Ever heard the saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

How good are one’s intentions if it does not take into account the freewill of the one the intention is being imposed on? The missionaries brought Jesus to Indian savages who worshipped spirits and dressed in loincloths. They intended to help the savages become civilized and attain heaven. So they controlled and assimilated them by taking away their kids, way of life, dignity to ensure entry into heaven, their heaven.

How good is one’s intention is it does not recognize our interconnectedness? We believe that we are providing for our family a healthy, wholesome food, when we are taking away the child of another, slaughtering and serving them on a platter, while disregarding the pain of another because it does not speak the same words that legitimize the mass killings of a species, we deemed ingredient. Once upon a time, the colonialists provided for their families when resources ran scarce on their lands, by robbing the lands of spices and silk and making slaves of us all in the process because we did not speak their language and welcomed them with an open heart. Animals trust us, love us, are kind to us but given the chance we rob them blind of everything even their lives.

How good is one’s intention when the end goad is to appeal and appease the ego? We intend to do charity and give to the poor by flashing a camera in their face, to show to the world how kind we are, disregarding the capacity of true consent of a man who has not eaten in days. How good is our intention if to appease our guilty mind the amount given is a mere fraction of a fraction of our earning, while we live in palaces?

Are good intentions about separating the world, into distinct categories, neatly ordered and kept apart. If there, is we, then there is automatically they, and what we are is always better than they the outsiders? I exclude you, us exclude them, when we create the world, when we put labels that separate, definitions that exclude how good are our intentions for this world. In some indigenous cultures mother is used to define the relationship of a child with every older woman of the tribe so that the pressure of caregiving does not fall merely on one person alone. How beautiful is a world where words bring together all, no labels, no up or down, no one alone? No ego to appeal, only a world to live in. Notice that there is many nouns but not many adjectives to which to admire the world.

In Anthropology the concept of critical cultural relativism asks questions about cultural practices and who is accepting them and why they are doing so and if they are in line with the historical practices and values of their culture. If it is only serving one subgroup of the culture or the whole culture as whole. Like in a family, is the family acting like a family? if there are people acting on their self-motivated interests and not of the family as whole. My family may be different than yours but can yours be deemed a healthy family if they are acting as solo individuals and not thinking of the whole.

Our world is not merely changed by intentions but by actions, actions that are put together in words. Environments, and cultures that shape us, define us.

‘’the road to hell is paved with good intentions’’

By the nuns and fathers

Who saw a dire need to do good

Jesus was brought to the savages

Indians that needed saving

Indians that needed to be civiziled

That’s why they ripped them of their kids

Put them in schools

That tortured them

Killed them

So, they could go to heaven

A civilized heaven full of good intentions and a white Jesus.

We needed to provide protein for our families

That why we killed the kids of others

So that we can feast on their protein

That’s probably why the colonialists

Stole our spices and jewels

Made us slaves

because they needed the spice to

Preserve their meat for long winter months

And feed their families

We give to charity

To do good and feel good

But do we feel good and that’s why we do good

Is that why we flash a camera

In the face of a hungry man

For whom consent is the least of his worries

But a right to his dignity

We strip a man of their respect

By giving a fraction of a fraction

Of a salary

Through which we live like kings

How noble of us

The world is round,

Not a box,

Things flow in this world

We are not bound by walls

We create them

We create communities

By words that separate us to them

I exclude you

Us exclude them

That’s maybe why we pollute the world

It flows as someone else’s problem

How many have lost their lives in the name of nations

Merely a factual concept, peons in the game of hoarding resources

When the world is divided, separated, distinctly named

There is no place for everyone at the table

Our world is not merely changed by intentions but by actions

That are fuelled by the imagination that create the world

Where there are villains and heroes

A stark divide

That paint the world in black and white.

If we want to change the world, ask the world does it need changing

If we want to help, ask those that need, how we can help them

If we want to care for another, ask them how they need to be cared for

If we want to live, ask others if our lifestyle is encroaching upon their right to life.

If we speak, ask other is our words hurt, divide, judge or condemn

Intentions are born of our language, environment, culture, resources, history

Whether they are good or bad is asking whether the world is in black or white

But when the light shines in, everything is made of color with each sunrise

Critical cultural relativism looks at why, who, and to whom does it serve our practices.

Does it serve one or all?

A home is made whole when all its members are united in their differences.

Differences that challenge our egos’ that maybe just maybe we do not know everything

And knowing that might make us a little us sure of ourselves.

But when our ground is shaken, do we not hold the hand of another to find our balance?

And would that be such a bad thing after all to not know everything and learn a little something everyday so that we are together in our uncertainty as we go through life?