Pain, past

 

Seeing you hurts—
not loud, not sudden,
just a slow collapse inside my chest.

Pain leaks from places I never named,
problems buried so deep
even hope won’t dig for them anymore.

I fall into the abyss,
where no one stays,
where even obsession gives up
and lets me disappear.

Hearing you say you don’t care breaks something permanent.
Hearing you say you don’t love empties the room.
Hearing you say you’re not okay
carves guilt into my bones.

I say I’m okay.
It’s a lie I learned to survive.
You are not.

If karma is real, let it circle me.
Let it take its time.
I will pay for every way I hurt you.

I erase my plans.
I erase myself from places I once belonged.
I try to learn self-love,
but it feels like touching a wound
and calling it healing.

Poetry fails me here—
language breaks under the weight of this.
Nothing is clear.
Nothing is gentle.

Still, they say you will be okay.

And I will exist—
with or without you,
with or without anyone—
not healed, not whole,
just breathing.

If there is a gift in all of this,
it is not happiness.
It is endurance.
It is life,
unapologetic and cruel,
refusing to let me go.