things i won’t dm your husband

(even though, let’s be honest—you earned it.)

listen, honey—let’s be real.
i’ve tried to exit this storyline more times than i can count.
built entire lives.
moved continents—spiritually, emotionally, tactically.
but you keep orbiting.
you keep checking.
so the reason i’m writing this
is the same reason you’ll see it:
because no matter how far i move on,
how cleanly i cut out,
you won’t let me die.

because deep down,
you know i’ll always be a threat—
not because i’m trying.
but because i don’t have to.

and in all reality,
you knew exactly what i was to you.
(please do not play dumb.)
even when i was going through the worst shit of my life,
i showed up for you.
fully.
quietly.
without agenda.

i gave you something real—
grace, cover, loyalty.
and you gave me nothing.
no mercy.
no reciprocation.
you let me rot.
you let me check the fucking bill.
(emotionally & monetarily)
and you didn’t fucking think twice.

but sweetie, don’t forget-
if this were a competition,
you wouldn’t even pass the vibe check.

but here’s the difference—
unlike you,
i actually love the people you keep in emotional hostage situations.
and real love?
it’s not manipulation.
it’s not optics.
it’s knowing you could burn shit down,
and choosing not to—
not because you don’t deserve it,
but because they don’t.

that’s restraint.
not weakness.
it’s letting god handle the karma
i’m overqualified to deliver.

so let’s be straight about your life—
you didn’t build it.
you staged it.
for the comments.
for the applause.
for approval from the church moms
who’d block your number
if they ever saw the unedited version of your story.

because your whole existence is a glorified cover-up.
a rebrand for women who would 100%
call you exactly what you are.
(and they would.
without hesitation.
in a prayer group text.)

and that’s why you’ll never touch me.

because i don’t have to edit the truth
even when it’s ugly.
i don’t use people to make the story look better.
i don’t slap a halo on wreckage and call it redemption.

and girl—
even when my husband had me by the throat,
i didn’t call up my ghosts.
because i don’t keep men on standby
to stabilize my self-worth.
i don’t stack bodies
to build a personality.
and i don’t play checkers
(i know you can’t play chess)
with people’s lives
just to feel like someone still wants me.

you don’t envy me because i’m mean.
you envy me because i’m intact.
because i can sit in stillness
without disintegrating.
because whatever lives in me—
that thing that makes him look at me like that—
you’ll never have it.

so go ahead.
keep watching.
keep refreshing.
keep rearranging your personality
to chase an energy you’ll never match.

but let’s call it what it is:
the real reason i still live rent-free in your head
has nothing to do with the past.
it’s that you know—
deep down,
exactly who i am
in his story—
and worse,
you know who you aren’t.

so no,
i won’t message your husband.
even though i could.
even though he should know.
because the truth?
you’re already living with the consequences.
i don’t need to say a word.

i’m not your competition.
i’m just the woman your whole life is built to erase.

so stay soft out there, wifey.

to the love of my life

(this isn’t what you want it to be)

i know you wear that title like a crown.
because you know it’s you.
but i’m here to dethrone you.

because even though you are—
the love of my life—
it’s embarassing.

because what you should know is this:

i’ve always been numb.
dead inside.
unmoved.
detached.

the grief,
the violence,
the betrayal—
they rewired me.

and the part of me that believed in you?
that was the miracle.
that was the glitch in the fucking system.
a once-in-a-lifetime fuck-up.
a weakness.

you should’ve never gotten in.
i shouldn’t have ever let you.
but you did.
and you wasted it.

so tell me—
how does it feel
to betray the broken thing
that was finally brave enough to believe you?

the weakest thing i ever did.
was to really believe you meant it.

so—

do you think of me?
be honest.

mornings?
nights?
on long drives
when you can’t sleep
when she’s not me

it’s constant, isn’t it?
the haunting?

because i remember.

i remember watching you grow.
i remember the way you looked at me—
you can’t make that shit up.

the fire.
the fury.
but also the delicate.
i never let anyone see.

so yes—
you were the love of my life.
because,
i believed you.
and that’s the only difference.

because,
i never believed any of them.
not one.
but they never looked at me like that.

and that’s how you killed me.

the betrayal
of believing
it was finally safe.

so definitely—
you broke me.
devastated me, actually.
i’ve never let myself feel that much pain.

but not because you’re magic.
not because you’re powerful.
or mythical.

you broke me—
because i believed you.

and that was your one shot.
your one miracle.
your once-in-a-lifetime access
to something holy.

and you used it
to run some epically long joke.

so i hope your greatest love story
is knowing the most untouchable,
unforgiving,
devastatingly hot,
brilliant girl
you’ll ever breathe beside—

believed every word.
but you were just fucking kidding.

so congrats.
you really had me.

iv. letters i should never write: to the woman sleeping with his cadaver

i don’t know you exist.
not for certain.
but i know you exist.

hi.
i’m the past.
the one he couldn’t kill.

let me tell you your future.

he probably said i was insane.
manipulative.
violent.
that he tried.
that i ruined him.

and you—
you probably wanted to believe him.
because it made you feel chosen.
special.
needed.

(i get it)

but i know you’ve seen the cracks.
the things you know not to ask.
the phone face down.
the gaps in the story—
where you can feel it’s a lie.

and honestly?

he’ll grow quieter.
not calm—
just calculating.

you’ll ask simple questions.
he’ll deflect like you struck him.

you’ll rationalize.
he wouldn't.
he couldn’t.
he would.
he did.

you’ll pay the bill.
you’ll fix the mess.
you’ll lie for him.
just like us.

you think i’m bitter,
angry,
unwell.
but no—
i’m free.

i cut the rope.
he wanted us to drown quietly together.

he doesn’t love you.
he loves an ego hit.
he loves your assets.
(did he move in?)

your willingness to believe you’re different.

and i’m sorry.
but—
you’re not.
you’re just next.

because he’s not just damaged.
he’s pathological.

and he’s not haunted.
he’s infected.

(and that makes him dangerous)

he studies people like us so he can become who we need—
to secure the resources he needs to survive.

i hope he hasn’t taken your money yet.
your confidence.
your light.
but if he hasn’t,
he will.

so take this as my warning:
it will hurt.
because when he cracks—
he crushes.
it’s brutal.
irrationally cruel.

and that is the sickness.

he sleeps beside you,
but he’ll never live in that body.

and girl—
he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to unsee his own ghosts.

and you—
you are just his next hiding place.
you are the cover story.
the camo.
the alibi.

so if you see this,
(you probably will)

baby, run.

the static of childhood.

when you try to remember
and all that comes up
is violence—
you stop trying.

not to forget.
just to function.

your brain learns
to look away
before the image forms.
before the scream
has space to land.

and over time,
the memories don’t hurt.
they just fade.

not to peace.
just absence.
not to heal.
just deletion.

the black void of childhood
isn’t nothingness.
it’s static.
flashes.

i see glimpses of laughing.
then—
a bottle of soda
poured over your head at dinner.
you just sat there.

i remember your finger.
bent the wrong way.
i remember not reacting.
just watching.

the entire time
trying to be invisible.

we were locked in one room for a year.
pull-out bed.
foam mat on the floor.
i turned ten in that room.
we thought if we stayed together
you couldn’t get us.
we were wrong.

i didn’t forget.
i just didn’t look.
i trained my brain
not to finish the thought.

like—
you kicked the dog
so many times
we had to bury it.
but i didn’t remember that
until my thirties.

because i didn’t want to.

i remember the shelter.
the rv.
your condo.
the bedroom door open.
me and my sibling
just staring.
not speaking.

i remember the roof.
because locking my door wasn’t enough.
you’d scream about something downstairs
and i’d know—
i had minutes
before you came up
to destroy me.

the cops came.
all the time.
and left.

i remember wanting you to die.
i meant it.
i was a child.
and i meant it.

but what i don’t remember?

i don’t remember my teachers.
i don’t remember friends.
i don’t remember playing.
i don’t remember
anything
that made me a kid.

just flashes.
snow.
christmas.
forts.
but it’s haunted.
because it always turns.

people think forgetting
means healing.
means it couldn’t have been that bad.
nah.
i remember the bad.
i just don’t remember the normal.
the boring.
the safe.

and that’s worse.

you didn’t just damage me.
you stole the whole foundation.

and people love to say
move on.
it was a long time ago.
like i’m supposed to wake up
with a new nervous system.

like i’m not out here
trying to grow
with no roots.
just trauma
and bad vibes
that used to make me shake.

other people got to build a life.
some of us just had to survive ours.
not the same thing.

i’m pissed off that you’re dying

i’m pissed off that you’re dying.
i’m not heartbroken yet.
i’m just pissed.
pissed in that quiet, shaking way where even crying feels like a waste of fucking effort.

i’m pissed off that you’re dying.
not because it’s shocking.
not because it’s sudden.

you said it would happen.
you’ve been saying it for years.
but now the doctors say it too—
stage four.
bones.
lungs.
maybe a few years.
maybe less.

they say it like that should be a god damn blessing.
like time is a fucking favor.

i’m pissed off that you’re dying.
when we just crawled out of hell.
me, my kid, the dog.
the wreckage of a life we barely survived.
and you—
you were supposed to be here.

so of course now you’re the one the universe wants to take.
of course.
why not.
burn it all.
teach me another lesson.
make sure there’s nothing left but memory and rage.

i’m sick of lessons.
sick of resilience.
sick of the cosmos handing out grief like it’s my fucking birthright.

you were supposed keep living for us.
you were supposed to outlast the worst parts.
you were supposed to be here when it was finally safe to come home.

but no.
god does not give a fuck.

so now.
listening to treatment plans.
like it’s just so inescapable.

i don’t want to be grounded.
i don’t want to write some poetic shit about love and impermanence.

i’m pissed off that you’re dying.
and i swear to god—
this world is not taking you quietly.

we are going to ‘rage against the dying of the light.’

and if you go?
it goes with you.
my mercy.
my restraint.

i’m going to become something it regrets.

you were the last good thing.
and i’m so fucking pissed off that you’re dying.

calculated (ai) homicide

me:
can you plug in the variables of the risk assessment?

chatgpt:
sure! let’s break it down— just data.

baseline risk (average woman killed by current/former partner):
→ 1 in 3,000

+ strangulation history (x7.5 fatality risk):
→ 1 in 400

+ special forces training (x3 estimated increase):
→ 1 in 133

+ post-separation stalking & hacking (x4 lethality factor):
→ 1 in 33.25

+ public shame trigger (narcissistic collapse; volatile multiplier):
→ immeasurable, but accelerating ↓

+ inside 6–18 month lethality window post-separation:
→ confirmed.

+ access to firearms / tactical violence training:
→ (potentially) confirmed.

+ obsession with “lost” family unit:
→ lifelong trigger. dormant ≠ dormant.
──────────────

⟶ conservative estimate: **1 in 30**
⟶ that’s 60–100x the risk of a typical woman.

chatgpt (robot flat):

not a suspicion. not paranoia.
just a rough sketch of the grave you’re crawling from—
it’s just math.

iii. letters i should never write: steven the rapist.

i could start this by calling you a disgusting, pathetic little piece of shit.
but even that says too much yet means too little.

your mom should have miscarried you.
you are a mistake to the world.
you are a clerical error of the universe.
not even a real person.
just walking, breathing fecal matter stuffed into unironic nerd glasses.
a creepy short-ass loser that has friends that are girls;
because it’s too hard to get someone to fuck you that wants to.

you’re the reason women are confused about what rape is.
because honestly you look like a pussy.
that’s the only reason i even let my guard down.
but you’re the reason i learned that being nice to men—
makes them think you want to fuck them.
makes them think they deserve to fuck you.

you hovering little hobbit bitch.
orbiting.
lurking.
watching me date literally…anyone else.
but that didn’t matter to you.

you swear we made out once.
good for you.
hold onto that.
you’re going to need something to fantasize about when you rot in whatever basement you still live in.

what i remember is christmas night.

i remember being blackout drunk.
i remember asking my brother to drive me home.
and i remember you —
jumping in like the little peasant-bitch you are
like you were owed something for creeping in the background all those years.

you said,

"nah, i got you—let me"

yeah.
you "got me."

you got me passed out.
you got me half-conscious and unable to say no.
you got me bleeding out and terrified the next morning.

you got me a tampon jammed so far inside me it felt like it was trying to butcher me from the inside out.

congratulations, you fucking loser.
imagine having to move like that to get someone to fuck you?

i told my brother when i woke up.
the first person i saw.
i told him with that tampon still lost inside me.
and he looked me in the face and said,

"are you telling me you got date raped?"
(disgusted)
and walked away.

he’s the reason i didn’t go to the hospital that day.
i was too scared.
because nobody fucking cares.

ten years later i walked into the police station anyway.

they made me find your number.
they made me call you.
they made me speak to you.

and you didn't even deny it.
you fucking agreed.
you fucking admitted it.

you said:

"yeah... it didn’t feel right."
"yeah... i knew how drunk you were."

sober enough to drive an extra hour out of your way.
sober enough to seize an opportunity you knew i would never have complied with sober.
(like the weird little pathetic gremlin you are)
sober enough to rape me and make it home in a—
poof.

but it still wasn’t enough for them.
because in the eyes of the law,
unless you die on the floor,
in front of their eyes
it doesn’t count.

but hey steven,
hear me out for a second—
you think this is over?

new jersey doesn’t have a statute of limitations, you dumb troll.
and now i know the law better than the pigs who let you off the first time.

this isn’t a threat.
it’s just a fact.

you’re not even a villain in my story.
you’re a thought that makes me want to peel my own skin off.
a fucking weird gross stain.
a fuckup i haven’t gotten around to correcting yet.

you’re insidious because you hide behind niceness.
but someday people will know exactly what you did to me.

and that title will stay with you forever.

you’re just a body walking around waiting for the truth to catch up.

and it will.
(hope you sleep okay)

you don’t fkn know me.

you don’t know
i used to run an entire blog when i was sixteen
about how i wished my father would die.

(full chest. prayed that motherfucker—
would freeze in a snowstorm.
fall off a cliff. evaporate.
whatever was quickest.)

you don’t know
i taught myself to code websites from curiosity,
one broken-ass pixel at a time,
locked in my room until 2am.

you don’t know
i wanted to be a photographer so bad
i shot a full suicide girls set for my best friend,
who chain-smoked marlboro reds like it was cardio
and tattooed half her body before we could legally drink.

you don’t know
i used to drive to philly like i had court-ordered community service
in the city of sadness—
just trying to outrun the loneliness
chewing through my ribs that year.

you don’t know
i was wandering around rome
when one of the hottest men i’ve ever seen
stopped,
decided i was inevitable,
and took me on a date right there.

like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

you don’t know
about the men who have written poems about me
just because they sat next to me in class.

(confused how i could be hot and smarter than them)

built me cathedrals with flowers;
just so i would notice them.

(i didn’t)

or the texas boys
that taught me to two step
in the middle of a frat party
in the dining room;

spinning.
like no one was watching.

you don’t know
how many men wrote whole mythologies about me.
(just watching me exist.)

you don’t know
that when i moved to new york city,
me and my best friend split a single sweet potato for dinner
because the metrocard was more important.

you don’t know
i waited tables at a bowling alley for the jonas brothers
and thought they were just some homeschool kids with bad haircuts.

(but that’s kinda the vibe… right?)

you don’t know
about the night i accidentally ended up backstage with steve aoki
in atlantic city —
because my best friend was shamelessly hot (and a baby)
and i spent half my life trying to fight off the men
who thought they could take a piece of her.

you don’t know
i got shipped off to texas (safety)
for those summers
like someone trying to return a defective product.

where the heat glued itself to my skin,
where my uncle taught me to surf baby waves
on the gulf of mexico.

(yes, of mexico, for the geographically illiterate gremlins.)

you don’t know
i grew up in those texas and louisiana summers,
mowing lawns and inhaling safety
that tasted like grass clippings, diesel fuel,
and generational disappointment.

you don’t know
i drank butter tea
in the dalai lama’s temple in exile
while he spoke about compassion.

(didn’t feel holy.)

you don’t know
the night i spent in a domestic violence shelter
as a child.

(not that you give a fuck.)

you don’t know
how survival stitches itself into your bloodstream
like a parasite
you eventually start calling a personality.

you don’t know
my first real loss was a girl i met in second grade—
re-found over cheap clothes and worse parties—
who i promised myself i’d say hi to outside the library.

(i was leaving for college.
i thought i had time.)

there wasn’t a next time.
she died in a car crash a week later.

i carried that forever.

you don’t know
i dropped out of my freshman year
because i could feel myself slipping under
and honestly didn’t want to stick around for the autopsy.

you don’t know
i fought my way into texas when everyone said i wouldn’t—
ran like a fucking animal
being chased by predators.

you don’t know
i rode on the backs of motorcycles
owned by men who should’ve been in jail.

(just to feel something.)

you don’t know
that half the people still watching me
aren’t witnesses — they’re parasites.

the kind of roaches
who resent what they can’t become.
who confuse proximity with relevance.
who mistook being close enough to overhear my life
for having a part in it.

you don’t know me.
you never did.

so it’s honestly lowkey embarrassing—
how you thought this story somehow revolved around you.

sweetheart;
you never even read the cliffnotes for idiots.

let me tell you about being alone

not the kind you think of.
not missing someone in your bed.
not a quiet night in an empty room.

i mean the kind of alone
where there’s no father with a toolbox,
no brother with a truck—
(or who gives a fuck)
no friend who says,
of course, girl — what do you need?

the kind of alone
where there’s no neighbor to call,
no one in driving distance who even notices you’re missing.
where you fucking hate having to ask for help—
because:
it’s a favor,
a burden,
a negotiation.

where getting a flat tire isn’t a bad day —
it’s a risk assessment.
it’s standing on the side of the road, praying
the strangers you have to interact with are safe —
because you’re alone with a baby.

where holidays aren’t just lonely —
they are loud,
screaming at you through every window,
full of other people’s families.
and you’re just sitting there,
watching yourself not belong anywhere.
pretending whatever you glued together is enough.

the kind of alone
where every small breakdown
is a sermon about how optional you are.

i have lived my whole life like this.
but this is the first time i stopped pretending otherwise.

because honestly,
i've always been surrounded.
just not caught.
just not included.

they orbit when you shine.
they love your glow.
they swear they’d catch you if you ever fell.

but stay dark for longer than three minutes —
and you’re heavy.
too much.
too messy.
too much of a reminder of the shit they’re scared could happen to them too—
if they were truly alone.

because you made this bed for yourself, didn’t you?

so you learn to laugh it off.
you learn to need less.
you learn to say, it's okay, i got it.

because if you don't —
you watch the way people look at you.
like you’re already dead weight.
like they were never really planning to be there.

and the sickest part is:
if i disappeared,
if something happened,
it might take a day.
two.
longer.
before anyone even noticed my silence.
before anyone worried about my dog.
or my daughter.

this is not romance loneliness.
this is survival loneliness.
the kind you have to bleed through at night,
so your kid doesn’t sense the silence it leaves behind.

i don’t romanticize it.
i don’t call it strength.

but we are still here.
somehow.

not because it’s beautiful.
not because it’s noble.
but because no one ever should have had to do this alone.

and yet here we are.

ii. letters i should never write — to the woman who had my last name first:

sometimes i think about you.
not because he made you a threat.
not because of jealousy.
but because i questioned what happened.

i saw the man that came to me.
the rot.
the confusion.
the mask that slipped only when no one else was looking.
(the cruelty.)

and i thought—
maybe only i could see it.
maybe that meant i could fix it.
maybe it would be different.

but i should’ve known.
i should’ve read between the lines of your silence.
the absence of details.
the things that didn’t quite add up.
the things that were too neatly erased.

i heard the whispers.
the ones people say in low voices
so they don’t have to say them all the way.

but now i understand:
he didn’t love either of us.
(i think it was the one in between / irrelevant.)
but truthfully—
he never loved himself.

i got your letters.
from the church.
the ones asking to dissolve what god had supposedly bound.
i read them.
even the accusations.
some were harsh.
(maybe unnecessary.)
but some haunted me.
because i know you weren’t lying.

and even in the slander—
i believed you.
every word.

i still would’ve protected him.
not because i didn’t believe you.
but because i knew what he was,
and still wanted him to be better.

i’m not religious.
but i am here to tell you:
i heard you.
i see you.

and some things that are supposed to be holy break.

but i’m proud of you.
it wasn’t okay.

and i’m sorry your dream fell apart.
i’m sorry for what was promised
and never delivered.

because the truth is—
he never had a dream.
just pain,
and delusion,
and a black hole of secrets.

i don’t know if we ever really knew him.
but we both tried to.
and we both lost.

i’m sorry what you had with him died.
what i had did too.
and the man we knew?
he lives on like a ghost.

but i wanted you to know—
i believe you.
and i know what it cost you to survive him.

i. letters i should never write— to my father (but really, to the boy you were):

i’m not writing to the man.
that man is dead to me.
this is for the boy.
the child still trapped inside the monster you became.

i forgive you.
not because you deserve it,
but because i know what happened.

i’m sorry life was cruel to you before you had words for it.
i’m sorry no one kept you safe.
i’m sorry the lights went out and no one came.
i’m sorry you wandered the streets as a kid,
looking for a floor that wouldn’t kick you.
i’m sorry you were hungry.
cold.
forgotten.
i’m sorry you weren’t held more.
that your mother left.
that you became hard when what you needed was softness.

i’m sorry for the horrors you definitely saw
and the dreams that died before you even learned to dream.

but here’s the part i’ll never say out loud:
it’s true.
i leave you.
and yes—forever.

not because i stopped loving you.
but because you wouldn’t stop bleeding on me
from wounds you refused to heal.
you stabbed me with the same blade that made you.
and one day, i finally pulled it out
and said:
no more.

you didn’t get out.
i tried to drag you out.
but you wouldn’t come.

so i did what you couldn’t.
i got out.
i took the ghosts and turned them into light.

your granddaughter is safe.
she is warm.
she is fed.
she will never know what we survived.

and that’s the part i want you to know,
somewhere, in whatever broken cathedral your soul still haunts:
you didn’t get to finish the story.
but the ending is beautiful anyway.

we made it.
you didn’t.
but because of that—
we did.

you always came for me

i met her in the golden era of algorithms.
a blue-check siren call—handstands and hash-tagged divinity—
and me?
just a girl with calloused palms
and a vision nobody could see yet
in the back of a building no one could find.
but somehow,
she did.

she saw something in me—
not the broken, not the act, not the brand—
but the part that was feral, burning,
half-wild and half-willing to die trying.
she didn’t hesitate.
she co-signed the chaos.
showed up with the light and the ladder.
dragged me up.

she knew what it cost.
to open your ribcage in public,
to be the first girl to burn,
to talk about colonization in a room full of lululemon.
when the mob came, she didn’t look away.
she stood shoulder to shoulder with me,
white knuckles, open throat,
like a woman who knew exactly what it meant
to use her privilege as a weapon for, not against.

she saw through the trembling.
the hypervigilance.
the moments where i wanted to disappear into the floor.
and instead, she laid one down.
clean. soft.
said: “you can land here.”
and i did.

when i thought the world might spit me out,
she wrote the check.
sent the wire.
packed the bag.
scrubbed the floor.
made room.
i never had to ask.

she came from another orbit—
poised, patient, made of pause—
while i burned through cities with my teeth.
i was fire.
she was the calm that held it.

we didn’t speak the same native tongue,
but we spoke fluently in each other.
she let me rant about empires and power and patriarchy,
even when it wasn’t easy, even when it wasn’t hers.
we fought. we listened. we cried.
and cried.
and cried.

we’ve crossed more borders than some people cross streets.
slept on concrete, posed on sand,
cried in the jungle, and laughed
til we forgot who started the fight.
she’s the only person who ever took me anywhere
just because she wanted to.
no hidden agenda. no branding deal.
just us against the entire fucking world.

she’s the only one who ever said the word brilliant
without mockery.
without flattery.
like a fact.
like gravity.

we didn’t envy each other because we couldn’t.
we weren’t built the same.
we were forged for different wars.
and still—
we always knew when to carry the other
off the battlefield.

i don’t know what kind of cosmic contract we signed.
but i know this:
you never left me behind.
not once.
not when i was broke,
not when i was broken.
not when the whole damn world tried to silence me
and i was too tired to scream.

and i would do it all over again.
eight million times.
every war.
every floor.
every country.
every night we couldn’t sleep
because the truth was too loud
and the world was too stupid to hear it.

i’d do it all again
for you.

to everyone i begged to love me

when you grow up
without a family to surround you,
sometimes you learn
to walk through the world
asking people
if maybe, just maybe,
you could call them home.

i didn’t know
i was carrying that question.
not for a long time.

but i offered my heart
to anyone who’d hold it—
even if only for a moment.
i called the ache love.
i called the chaos care.

and every time they left,
i thought it was because
i hadn’t given enough.
that maybe
i just could have done something differently.

i mistook
momentary attention for affection.
crisis for closeness.
convenience for connection.
because when the people
who were supposed to love you
are the ones who forget you the fastest,
who wound you the deepest,
and who still call it love—
you learn to need less.
to rationalize.
to say "i understand why they did it"
while wiping the blood
off your own hands.

so i gave.

i gave everything.
my time.
my money.
my loyalty.
my forgiveness.
my softness.

i tried to prove
i was worth staying for.
worth choosing.
worth loving.

but the people i gave to?

they only came around
when they were empty.
they only stayed
when it benefited them.
and they only loved me
when i asked for nothing in return.

i stayed.

i knew what it was.
i saw the neglect.
i saw how you showed me cruelty
in ways i could never fathom
returning to you—
and i kept trying.

because maybe
if i just decoded your lack of empathy,
you’d come back.
maybe the friends i begged to be siblings,
the family i begged to notice me,
the lovers i begged to just see me—
maybe one of them would stay.
but they didn’t.

because really

i was just a fire
they loved to sit near
and leave once they felt warm.

i was never the destination.
just a detour.
a soft place to land
before they went back
to the people they’d always choose first.
the people that demanded more
and respected themselves.
and now?

i release you.

every person who took what i gave
and gave nothing back.
every person who called me family
when it was easy
and stranger when it wasn’t.
every person who made me prove my worth
while handing theirs out for free.
i don’t want your crumbs.
i don’t want your pity.
i don’t want to be remembered out of guilt.

if you ever want to know me again,
you’ll have to meet the version of me
who no longer bleeds for breadcrumbs.
who doesn’t soften so you can stay.
who doesn’t beg to be seen.
because i’m not angry.
i’m just awake.

i know now:
love doesn’t look like cruelty.
love doesn’t feel like fear.
love doesn’t disappear when it matters.
love doesn’t forget you
when you’re sitting
by yourself alone.
so i’m done chasing ghosts.
done explaining myself.
done pretending
this is anything other
than what it was.

i loved you.
and that should have been enough.
but it wasn’t.
because you never loved me.
you just loved
the proximity
to my glow.
but now i know better.
this isn’t bitterness.
it’s clarity.

and for the first time
in my life,
i’m choosing me.

and i’m okay
sitting alone.

the ghost you left inside me

(you’ll probably never read this, but if you do i hope you cry.)

here’s the truth i’ve never spoken out loud.

you intentionally killed her.
it wasn’t an accident.
it wasn’t a tragic mistake.
it was a choice.

you knew she existed.
and you wanted her gone.
so you made me suffer for bearing
the thing you had begged me for—
for eons.
for lifetimes.
with clarity.
with conviction.
for years.

and then you looked me in the face
and told me she couldn’t exist.
with anger like i did something wrong.
and even though you softened later—
you still left.
you still abandoned me.
and then you told them i was lying.
as i bled your child out
on the floor,
alone.

you stabbed me in the back—
so deeply that you hoped you’d cut far enough
into my body that she died along with me—
from the depths of your brutality.

and you did.
you won.
you killed her.

and while i lay in ancestrial ruins soaked in her blood:

you vanished.
you erased us.
you made me look insane—
for carrying the life you came to me and asked me to create.
and then tried to ruin me for believing you.

you begged me for a family.
you begged me to build a life.
you stared into my soul and told me
i was your home.
and the second that home took form,
you destroyed it.

you didn’t ask if i was okay.
you didn’t check if she made it.
you told her story to someone else
like it never even happened.
like i made her up.

but i didn’t.

i felt her.
saw the lines.
saw them fade.
she was real.
and you killed her.
because it was easier than facing your own wreckage.

my body broke
the stress and devastation ate me alive.
my womb collapsed
because your betrayal carved open my back
and stabbed through her heart.

i mother a ghost now.
while you pretend you never made her.

and i need you to hear this:
you killed your greatest miracle and spit on her grave.

and i know you don’t speak these things out loud.
because that would make them real.

and i don’t care who told you it was okay to do this.
i don’t care what version of the story you tried to get them to believe.
the truth is simple:

she died because you wanted me to suffer.
for giving you what you always wanted.

and one day,
you will look at a life you didn’t build.
at a daughter you never knew.
and realize:
you were the burial.
not the father.

and i hope that ruins you.
forever.

you won.
you got nothing.

i didn’t want to write this

(but you’re the reason women die)

not because i didn’t have the words.
but because your archetype is exhausting—
and fatal.

you play the victim so well,
you’ve started to believe yourself.
you cry about chaos while quietly setting every fire.

there is a rare and insidious type of woman who
uses the language of abuse not to escape danger, but to create it.
it’s not a cry for help—it’s a tactic.
not to be saved, but to stay centered.
not to escape, but to control.

but baby girl, i clocked you the moment i heard the narrative.
i know the high you get from weaponizing what should be sacrosanct.
it’s your favorite modus operandi— (google it girlie)
because as long as you’re the perpetual victim,
no one will get an accurate read on the manipulative, abusive villain you really are.

but i do.
i see you.

because women who are truly afraid?
they don’t move like that. (i know you don’t know.)
they don't play chess with the men they say they're afraid of.
they don’t risk late-night texts—
because that kind of shit can get you fucking killed.

you are not afraid.
you are the chaos.
and maybe there is a cycle of abuse—
but you’re the one pulling strings from the epicenter.

this isn’t survival.
this is theater.
it’s covert optics.
behind his back.
while he pays your rent.
feeds your babies.
and you cry to another man to come save you.

but baby, i see you.

you don’t want to leave.
you want a better option.

i know this because:
you don’t run when the door isn’t even locked—
and you have multiple exit plans.
not when being trapped earns you pity and attention.
not when chaos keeps you in control of the storyline.

but i fucking see you.
because some of us actually ran for our fucking lives.
we know that you will leave everything,
in the middle of the night.

you grab the babies.
and you run.
no fucking shoes if you have to.

you just run.

because sweetie,
i’ve almost died at the hands of men that love me.
and let me explain, we’re not the ones smiling biggest in the family photo ops.
because it’s blessed, right?
(or am i in the wrong script now?)

and I know the difference
between a woman in danger
and a woman who uses the language of danger
to avoid being seen for what she really is.

you aren’t scared.
you’re calculated.

you don’t want peace.
you want power.

you’re the type of woman who needs men to orbit you.
as you play them against each other,
just to feel the power that you can’t get without manipulation.

but always remember this:
you hold babies as hostages,
and while you play games,
they will be imprinted with the chaos you created.

because you’re not trapped.
you are the architect of self-created tragedy.

but i hope you understand the gravity of what you’re doing.
because it is lethal.

and they will call us liars as penance for you.
because you sucked the empathy out of people
who were too exhausted to listen
when we are actually fleeing for our fucking lives.

and focus for a second:
they will die because of you.

and honestly, the worst part is:
your children will still suffer.

because abuse does live in this home.
you’re just not the victim.


***For survivors who’ve had their truth disbelieved because of someone else’s bullshit.

*broken homes

they always say a home is broken
when someone leaves.

but the ones that stay—
silent, untouched, decaying from the inside—

those are the ones that terrify me.

staying for the kids.
staying for the convenience.
staying because splitting would finally reveal the truth.

some homes should crack.
some are begging to crack.

because sometimes the safest thing in the world
is a mother and a baby,
on their own,
making something holy out of ash.

i’ve felt more like a daughter
in the hugs and the tears that were wiped
by someone who found me later in life
than i ever did with the one who helped make me.

so no,
i don’t hesitate at the idea of building sideways.
love doesn’t require blood.
it just needs a pulse.

i’ve seen the light change on someone’s face
when they meet a child that isn’t theirs—
and feel everything click into place anyway.

because true love doesn’t live exclusively in biology.
it lives in being there.
it lives in the shoes you tie,
the bikes you help them ride,
the instinct to protect.

i’m not afraid of bunk beds and blended holidays.
of step-siblings and spare toothbrushes in someone else’s house.
i’m not afraid of loving children i didn’t create,
or being loved by people who arrived later and still became family.

that isn’t broken.
that’s brave.

That is, without a doubt,
the essence of true love—
not merely a sense of obligation.

It’s a conscious choice to share and amplify love,
reaching out to embrace even more people in its security.

i’ve always wanted that.
a home that full.

so this is the family i built—
no blueprint,
just the child i carried out of a storm.

and even if it’s quieter than i pictured—
even if it’s just us—
it’s still a home.

and it’s not broken.

but the door?
it stays open.

not for chaos.
not for the ghosts, not for the shallow kind of love.

but for the kind of love that stays.
the kind that shows up.
the kind that remembers.

because they’ll call this a broken home—
but there’s nothing broken
about a mother, a baby, and a dog
waking up in peace
with nothing to recover from.

it’s truthfully holy.

but i always welcome more.

P.S.

(and yes,
she would’ve been a girl.

and yes,
they all would’ve been sisters.
and yes,
we can still have bunk beds.)

if you’re out there, this is for you.

**if you see this you’ll know.
you’ll remember that december.

the moment the addiction stopped being a shadow
and became something i could name.

we made a pact that day—
i wasn't going to leave you there alone.

not because we were together.
(if you remember correctly, i went on a date that night.)
not even because we owed each other anything,
but because the demons were circling.

and in that moment,
i didn’t want you to be alone ever again.

i wanted to protect you from everything.
from all of it.
and for a little while,
we really tried.

but this isn’t a love story.
not anymore.

this is a vow.
because we didn’t speak them then.
so i’m saying them now.
(when they mean more.)

not as your wife.
not as your judge or jury.
but as the woman who now carries your name.
your bloodline.
your daughter.

never doubt this:
she will know who you are.

your name will never be a word she’s afraid to utter.

she will know what you endured—
and what you couldn’t.
she will know about your father—
how his death lived in your body longer than he ever got to.
how you built yourself into a man,
even when there was an emptiness you couldn’t fully describe.

she will know that war stayed inside of you.
long after your duty ended.
that service came at a cost.
that sometimes the demons moved faster than healing ever could.

she will know that you got yourself into spaces
that you never thought were meant for you.
(i’ll make sure she wears your ivy league colors with the same pride)
she’ll know you accomplished more things before she was born,
than men twice your age could ever dream of.

she will know that you loved her.
that you chose for her to enter this world.
and that even when you couldn’t stay,
you didn’t leave her.
you left a version of yourself you couldn’t survive being.

and i will never let her confuse collapse with abandonment.
i will make sure she knows the difference.

i know you’re probably angry.
because i wrote the truth.
because i named the darkness.
because i didn’t protect the illusion.

but i didn’t do it to punish you.
i did it to free you.
because what we didn’t say out loud nearly killed us.

and darling,
i know what it’s like to be the monster.
i know what it feels like to have PTSD overwrite your nervous system.
to scream into the void.
to burn something good down
just to see if the fire would make you feel alive.

but despite the damage,
you will always be redeemable.
you will always be her dad.
and forever be our family.

i promise you these specific things;
because you willingly helped me fulfill the only destiny i couldn’t live without.
and even if we never do this side by side—
even if someone else teaches her how to ride a bike,
or makes pancakes on sunday,
or sits in the front row of her school play—
you will not be erased.

even if you’re never there.

because she looks just like you.
and sometimes,
when she tilts her head a certain way
or laughs without warning—
you are in the room again.

and i hope one day you come home.
not to me. but forever to her.

so you can see what we made.
so you can see who she’s becoming.

because this is my sworn promise:
you can trust me.
you can trust me.

this is my vow.

and i will keep it.
every day.
for the rest of my life.

eulogy for the man who almost was

*I’ll try to be kind. A gentleness you never extended to me.

i’m writing this as a eulogy.
not for your body—
but for your soul.
for your heart.
for the version of you i trusted with my life.

because that man is gone.

when i saw you last,
you were playing with my daughter.
your eyes softened.
your voice changed.
and you looked up at me and said,
“you know i would be a good father.”

and i said,
“you already are one.”

because you are.
even if just in blood.
even if she never calls you it by name.

your greatest dream was of a family, a home—
as it’s rotting right in front of you.
you gave up on becoming a man with a spine.
and instead,
you became… this.
a hollow imitation.
a version stitched together by avoidance
and existing in the shadows of your own life.

who whispers through locked phones and late-night texts.
a secret to his own bloodline.

but i remember you when you were still climbing toward the light.
scared.
but brave.
terrified of becoming your pain,
but with qualities that inspired me.
you hated lies.
you always tried to be kind.
you were so deeply traumatized by cheating—
that the thought of it made you physically sick—
because you’d seen what it did.
you swore you wanted different.

but now?

you lie without flinching.
you vanish without consequence.
you are disloyal as a reflex.
you protect the people who use you—
and without hesitation,
you destroy the ones who would’ve stood by you forever.

you have chosen to hide instead of grow.
silence over integrity.
you built a cage inside of your own worst fears,
and then convinced yourself it was where you belonged.

you became a man who doesn’t fight.
not for his kid. not for the truth. not for himself.

and you don’t get to pretend you don’t know that.

because i knew you before this.
i saw how hard you tried to be better.
i saw you become softer in a world that told you not to be.
i watched you fall apart,
but i thought you’d come back.
i thought you’d return stronger,
with more conviction,
more clarity.

but instead,
you let your cowardice calcify.
and it’s too late now.

you’re not who you were.
you’re not who you could’ve been.
you are a walking shell of what almost was.
and that version of you—
the one i loved,
the one your daughter could’ve been proud of calling “dad”—
he’s dead.

and this?
this is his funeral.

i don’t hate you.
but i will never chase a ghost.
and i will never speak to you like there’s still a fire inside your chest.

because for the first time ever,
i see you differently now.
and i’ve buried the man i knew in the ground.
you killed him.
and you chose to live in his place,
as a hollow, forgettable thing.

no backbone. no truth. no courage.

just a man who almost became.
and then gave up.

you were never the plot.

you were the karmic plot twist no one asked for.
not pivotal.
not poetic.
just a terrible rewrite that tanked the storyline.

and the worst part?
you really thought that made you important.

i was over here surviving shit you wouldn’t last a week through—
grieving real love,
real loss,
real betrayal—
and you were behind the scenes auditioning for a role no one offered you.
quoting lines you ripped off someone you so desperately want to be.
trying to become relevant by manipulation tactics and jesus misquotes.

you feed on the garbage.
on power over people that never wanted you.
on fake glow-up arcs built off someone else's suffering.
you want to be seen as the one who won something,
but everyone knows it’s because no one else wanted what you got.
a role in a narrative that everyone begged you to exit.

you don’t heal bloodlines.
you demolish them.
poison them.
manipulate.
control.
and then you slap scripture on the whole thing like god co-signed your fucked up delusions.

you weaponized a whole ass life to try to keep someone who didn't even want you enough to take you seriously in the first place.
and then paraded around like you were the victim in some epic romance you never even had.

you watched me lose everything and that made you feel important.
because it was the closest thing to actually being me that you'd ever get.
and stealing something that was never meant for you—
that was sacred—
and used it like a knife under a throat
because your actual personality wasn’t good enough to lock it down within itself.

but let’s get it straight—
you were never the plot.

you’re just cosplaying a christian wife
as you breed children out of every single cardinal sin.
you’re the victim in a self-written sub-story we didn’t even want to hear.

you manipulate people so you can feel significant.
and sweetie, we see it.

you were the mistake during a spiral that no one could delete.
the fucked up twist that devastated whole eras.
the mid-season tragedy we all had to suffer through so the storyline could keep moving.

call it righteous,
call it healing,
call it god.
we both know what it really was:
a desperate pick-me moment that you use to torture entire lineages.
a rerun of a stereotype so insidious and predictable
that they write cautionary fictions about it.
and honestly,
you ruin lives just to feel something.

that’s not love.
that’s epic-level annihilation.

and it’s rotting you.

but i’m still here.
untouched.
funnier.
hotter.
terrifying.
calmly narrating the script you effectively hijacked.

still everything you tried to imitate.

and you’ll never be remembered for anything other than the role you forced yourself into—
when baby…
(i’m going to hold your hand when i say this and i want you to really hear it;)
you were always just the plot twist no one wanted to happen.

sweetheart, you are the generational curse.

hope it was worth it.

murder math

i’ve been doing math my whole fucking life.
not algebra.
not calculus.
murder math.
survival calculus.
the invisible equation you run before you open your mouth.

if i say this, do i die?
if i enforce child support—does he snap?
if i tell the truth—does he drive across the country?
if i stop pretending i was ever in love;
that maybe even it was never that deep for me—
do i end up a true crime?

because here’s the real equation:
half of femicide victims are killed after they leave.
seventy-five percent were stalked beforehand.

and still—i see the numbers.

so i do the math.
i always do the fucking math.
every time i speak.
every time i post.
every time i call them what they are.
every time i choose to be happy.

and still, i feel it—
right behind me.

people say i’m glowing now.
they say i look peaceful.
that single motherhood suits me.
that i’m brave.

and all i can think is:

this is me at my most killable.