better to have lusted and lost

I used to think I was hard to break.

But then you touched me,

 and I mistook the tremor in my chest for love.

I should have known better.

Love doesn’t make you feel small.

Love doesn’t cost you your name.

I let you in because you asked for nothing

and I thought that meant you were gentle,

but you were just empty.

I kept calling you mysterious, guarded, careful,

no.

You were just hollow.

You wanted a body that obeyed,

a warm place to bury your loneliness,

a throat that whispered your name in the dark

so you didn’t have to hear the echo of your own.

You never wanted to know me,

you only wanted proof that you still existed.

I gave you tenderness like an idiot gambler,

kept doubling down every time you went distant,

every time your eyes dimmed

the moment after you had taken what you came for.

You never stayed long enough to feel anything real,

just long enough to reset the hunger.

You didn’t fuck me,

you fed on me.

And I let you.

That’s the part that keeps me awake,

not what you did,

but what I allowed.

I made excuses for you like a priest defending a silent god:

“He cares, he’s just afraid.”

“Give him time, no one has ever stayed.”

Pathetic.

You didn’t pull me in,

I offered myself.

I carved myself to fit your absence

and called the bleeding devotion.

But I see it now.

Lust was never the enemy.

At least lust tells the truth,

it arrives hungry and leaves clean.

No illusions. No promises. No rot.

But you,

you handled me like a believer handles scripture,

you took what you wanted

and ignored everything human.

You said you didn’t want love. Fair.

But you wanted to be loved,

you wanted the worship without the weight,

the warmth without the witness,

the body without the soul.

You wanted to be someone’s universe

while refusing to orbit anyone.

You coward.

You taught me something I should have always known:

real betrayal isn’t cruelty,

it’s indifference.

And you were a masterpiece of it.

So take what’s left of whatever this was.

I’m done playing altar.

I’m done offering miracles to a god who never asked to be holy.

I wanted love.

You wanted a place to hide.

We’re both free now,

but only one of us will starve.