An elegy for
She walked in like spring and left like winter.
There are people who bruise you gently, and people who leave a footprint. Liza was the second kind. She arrived like a season you weren't ready for — warm, bright, impossible to plan around — and she left with the same silence she came in with.
This isn't anger. It's just the record. The receipt of a heart that opened too fully to something that was never going to stay.
A quiet catalogue of the small things that stayed after she didn't.
Being wanted for a moment and being chosen for a life are two different currencies. I learned the exchange rate the hard way.
When someone stops trying, that is the message. There's nothing to decode. There's nothing coming next.
The two aren't a package deal. I confused one for the other and paid the invoice in months of pretending I hadn't noticed.
Not every ending is a punishment. Some are a favour dressed as a wound. I'm still learning the difference.
"The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies."
— Anonymous
You said forever
like it was a small word,
an easy one —
the kind you toss
over your shoulder
on the way out.
I gave you the softest parts of me
and you wore them out
like a coat
you didn't like the fit of
once the weather changed.
The worst part wasn't the leaving.
The worst part was
the way you looked at me
the day before —
like nothing was wrong,
like the whole thing
wasn't already
decided.
Four weeks.
That's what the calendar said.
But you took years with you when you left —
the ones I'd already spent
in a future
you were never planning
to show up for.
One day I'll thank you
for the shape of the door
you closed behind you.
I'll know its edges by heart
because I stood there
longer than I should have —
waiting for a knock
that was never coming.
This isn't a monument to bitterness. It's the last page of a chapter that already ended — put down carefully, so nothing important gets left inside.
Wherever you are, Liza — I hope you're well. I hope you're kinder now. And I hope the next person you meet gets the version of you that I thought I had.
— And that's the end of it.