Contentment comes easily now.

I can almost believe in it.

And then —

when the house is dark,

when sleep fractures into two-hour pieces,

when I lie beside the sound of loud, unbothered breathing —

you appear.

Not fully.

Just a memory.

A corner of you.

Enough.

I hate how it feels when you surface like this,

how exhaustion makes room for you,

how my mind opens the door

when I am too tired to keep it closed.

I doubt you remember me this way.

You always moved through life certain you were right.

Certain your feet landed on solid ground

even when they crushed someone else’s.

You liked to be big.

You needed others to shrink.

When life corrected you — quietly, indirectly —

you bristled.

Truth made you uncomfortable

unless it came from your own mouth.

You named me things I was not.

You spoke them as fact.

No evidence. No pause.

Just your voice,

sharp enough to cut a shape people believed.

I still wonder who else carries that version of me.

Who else learned me through your lens.

I knew I would never see you again.

That was my chance.

To speak.

To stand tall in my own body.

Instead, I chose peace.

Or what I thought peace looked like —

a clean ending, no raised voices,

no satisfaction for you.

I didn’t speak then.

I didn’t speak when it mattered.

I didn’t speak because I was taught silence was kindness.

And somehow,

that silence still feels like a loss.

There are nights I want the world to see you unravel.

To watch the truth catch up.

To know — without my saying a word —

who you really are.

I hate that wanting this makes me feel cruel.

I hate that anger clings to me

like it has nowhere else to go.

I am trying to loosen its grip.

Trying not to follow the memory

when it knocks.

Maybe this is the last thing you get from me —

not forgiveness,

not understanding,

but absence.

You don’t live here anymore.

And one day,

even the echo of you

will learn how to leave

—E