Writers 
In that other universe, you didn’t give up on us on me every time we cracked.
You didn’t run from the wreckage.
You stayed in the rubble with me and helped sweep.
You didn’t leave when it got hard.
You didn’t call silence “space” and disappear for weeks.
You didn’t chase validation in other people’s eyes
while I was home trying to remember how to breathe.
There, you looked at me when I was too bold, too loud, too much,
and you didn’t see a problem to fix.
You saw me.
You didn’t make me feel like my warmth was a burden,
like my love was too heavy to carry.
In that universe, we fought and we stayed.
We talked through the fallouts instead of collecting them like trophies.
We named the cold despair instead of letting it name us.
You didn’t go searching for love elsewhere
because you knew it was already here, messy and real.
I wouldn’t have spent nights wondering if I was enough.
I wouldn’t have learned to shrink just to fit in your moods.
I wouldn’t have watched you choose everyone else
and call it “needing time.”
Maybe there, you chose me on the bad days too.
Maybe there, “I’m sorry” meant repair, not retreat.
Maybe there, we grew old arguing about dishes
instead of dying young from all the things we never said.
I used to dream of that universe like a religion.
I prayed to it.
But prayers don’t change people.
And you kept choosing to leave.