I was a man

I was a man who fell to his knees for a woman.

A woman who lit my days and calmed my nights.

I was a man who fell in love—

with the very woman who shattered my heart.

But maybe…

Maybe I was the one who built my own suffering.

My own hell,

a twisted paradise I could retreat to—

a place safer than your grasp.

And now,

I feel that grasp again,

and I realize—

it wasn’t choking me like I thought.

It was all in my head.

My imagination was the noose,

tightening on a spirit

I had already broken myself.