he turned her birthdays into funerals.

another long poem on trauma masquerading as twin flames and all the ways it hurt.

she was eighteen
still soft the way girls are
when no one’s ever chosen them
for who they are
instead of what they survive.
still speaking in lowercase and apologies,
still learning to tell a red flag
from the color of her own heart on fire.

she said things like it’s okay when it wasn’t,
and i’m just tired when she was starving.
no one had ever picked her
without first asking what she could carry.
no one had ever called her beautiful
without calling her broken in the same breath.

so when he said you’re my muse,
she clung to it like it was prophecy
and that was all it took
for her to hand over the whole gallery.

they did acid once,
early. 
before the damage calcified and 
things exploded for good. 
they swore they saw the big bang
crackling inside each other’s pupils.
called it fate.
called themselves twin flames.
but it wasn’t fire.
it was a house burning down
and no one checking for survivors.
and trauma bonds look a lot like twin flames
when you’re eighteen
and craving rebirth.

he was smoke.
not metaphor.
just always halfway gone.
blurred at the edges.
there, but unreachable.
always chasing something
that wasn’t her.
eyes red, mind fogged,
whole days curled up in a cloud
he never invited her into.

he played the part of escape well.
and she was too eager to run
from the silence of her childhood 
(or loss of it)
to question what she was running into.
he called it fate.
she called it anything but home.

he learned her scars before her favorites.
she told him everything.
the things she never says out loud now.
about the way food felt like control,
and how control was a myth.
and how with no control there was
panic attacks, and sometimes
she wanted to disappear from the earth
and leave no note.
he cradled her secrets
like glass.
not to protect,
but to prove how close he was to the shatter.

and she,
she talked him down
from ledges,
real and metaphor.
held his sobs like sacred things.
he said she was the only one who understood him.
and that’s how he kept her.
chained to the weight
of being the only reason he stayed alive.

and still,
she fell in love.
with the way he said you get me.
no one had ever said that before.
no one had ever meant it less.

he had dreams.
but never discipline.
jobs slipped through his hands
like smoke.
he was high more often than not.
numbing hours into days,
stoned into apathy.

and while he drifted,
she built things.
his brand,
his persona.
she made the posters.
she stood in the crowd
watching him shine,
with no reflection on her skin.
he never remembered anything honestly,
especially not her.
not even her birthday.

actually,
he ruined her birthday.
more than once.
but there was one year…
a city she’d dreamed of,
a night that was supposed to be magic.
and he gave her nothing.
no dinner.
no kiss.
just the sound of her crying
beneath a foreign sky
while he looked away, 
wiping the blood off his hands.
another birthday
killed. 

she told him,
i never want to spend another birthday with you.
and the tragedy is
she still meant it gently.
because she still loved him.
even when the truth between them 
was almost impossible to deny.

there were lies.
small ones, easy ones,
the kind dressed in i forgot
or it didn’t mean anything.
but she always knew.
felt it in her body.
the phone turned face-down.
the shift in tone.
the ache in her gut
that never once lied to her.

he even stopped drinking around her.
because he didn’t like the version of himself
that came out when he was drunk.
the one that said things he didn’t remember
but she would never forget.
that version of him
called her needy,
called her boring,
called her nothing
without ever using the word.

but sober?
he wasn’t much softer.
just quieter.
which, somehow,
hurt worse.

he made her feel
undesirable.
unwanted.
unfuckable.
not with insults
but with silence.
with the way his hands reached for distraction 
instead of her.
with the way he kissed her forehead
like you’d kiss your sister goodbye.
she wore lace to bed.
he didn’t look up.
she stopped reaching for him
because rejection hurts louder
when it’s not said out loud.

then.
they broke up.
for a year.
(well, they broke up many times but 
never for this long)

she tried to move on.
tried to sleep without flinching.
tried to believe her body could be a thing
someone loved freely.

then…
another night.
another trip (literally and figuratively).
another excuse 
to slip back 
into old patterns.

tripping on love (and mushrooms)
they called it a sign.
as if hallucinating forgiveness
was the same as earning it.
as if molly and music
could drown out the memory
of all the times he turned her birthdays
into funerals.

when they were good,
they were escapism personified.
loud music.
long nights.
he kissed her like salvation
when he was high.
and she believed in the illusion
that rebirth 
could come from anything,
even early mornings filled with comedowns.

but sober,
they were graveyards.
and she was always the only one
bringing flowers, talking to the spirits.

she always stayed too long.
for people who loved her through him.
for the version of herself that thought
if she gave enough,
he’d remember how to love her.
for their friends who said 
they were meant to be.
for the version of herself
who didn’t know
that sometimes meant to be
is just trauma that’s familiar.
and that sometimes 
leaving 
can be a form of devotion.

he didn’t choose her.
he never did.
and when he hesitated again,
one more time,
about one more thing
that mattered to her.

she knew. 

he was never going to choose her.
because he never had.

so she didn’t leave loud.
she just left.
left without folding the sheets.
left without one last fight.
just vanished into the silence
he trained her to accept.

he still tries to come back.
still believes
there’s something salvageable
beneath the ash.
she doesn’t answer.
not because she’s bitter.
but because the story ended
long before he noticed 
he was no longer in it.

she buried it all.
without a gravestone.
no ceremony.
no eulogy.
just peace.

she’d already imagined other hands.
(maybe felt them too, 
but she won’t admit that)
gentler ones.
ones that didn’t recoil 
when she reached for them.

but even after him,
she got hurt again.
another boy,
another almost.
another night 
she folded her trust
into a paper airplane
and watched it fall.

and still
she never stopped loving
like it was holy.
like it could work
if someone just showed up 
all the way.

her heart stayed cracked
but open.
still letting light in.
still believing that love
could look like being chosen on purpose.
not out of need.
not out of fear.
not out of convenience.

she believes in love
the way some people believe in god.
not because she’s seen proof,
but because
something inside her
refuses to stop
hoping.
after all, it must exist. 
she’s full of it. 

yes—
the trust stutters.
yes—
the fear lingers.
but the miracle is this:

she still shows up with flowers.

she still writes poems
about a kind of love
that never made her flinch.

and maybe
that’s not naive.
maybe 
that’s the most dangerous,
brave,
holy thing
she’s ever done.

to love like this.
still.

note from the author:

if you’ve ever begged to be seen,

only to vanish in front of someone who said they loved you…

this is yours.

keep your softness.

don’t let them take that too

\(…\)