The Shadow That Wouldn’t Leave

I don’t know how to explain this without my hands shaking a bit, without that ticking sound echoing in my head again — tik tak, tik tak — the clock always running, always approaching something I don’t want to face.

There is someone who keeps appearing in my life.
He lurks in my DMs, always watching, always waiting.
He asks for my love, love I cannot and will not give.

He tries to change for me.
But I don’t want that.
Don’t change for me.
Change for yourself, for your own soul, for your own mirror.
But he keeps saying he is becoming a better person for me.
And I don’t like it.
Not even a little.

He analyzes me like a puzzle he wants to solve.
He tries to learn my favorite songs, my favorite food (he even pretends to love pasta now), the flowers I love, the poems I write — but it feels wrong.
It feels forced.
Like he’s wearing a costume of a person he thinks I will choose.

Stop imposing yourself on me.
Stop feeding me your emotions.
I can’t reciprocate them.
I am not the one you need.
I am not the one you love — not really.
You fell in love with a reflection, not a person.

Tik tak, tik tak.
I can hear him in my head when everything goes quiet.
I can feel his shadow behind me, his presence clinging like humidity in a closed room.
I try to breathe but the air tastes like him.

He comes back again.
And again.
And again.

With apologies, with poems, with sentences shaped to sound like mine.
He takes my own words and tries to return them to me like gifts.
It’s disgusting.
My voice is mine.
He cannot borrow my soul just to make me forgive him.

He watches my reposts.
My stories.
My blanks.
My silence.
I feel observed.

And the worst part —
I am giving him a chance only out of pity.
Because the one I truly loved never stayed.
Because I had a heart full of someone else, for too long, for too deeply.

I told him no multiple times.
I was cold, distant, sharp, cruel even.
But he stayed.
Not because he loves me —
but because he refuses to accept I don’t love him.

He says he loves me.
But he doesn’t even know my birthday.
He says he’s sorry for my loss.
But he can’t even name the friend who died.

You cannot claim to love someone when you do not know the shape of their pain.

Tik tok, tik tok.
The clock has stopped.
The moment has frozen.
And I am here again, with this shadow breathing down my spine.

I feel watched.
Not loved.

And I am done being haunted.

Onnaya