Fault Lines

You knew where I kept the fractures.

...

Not the visible ones —

not the polite scars I show at dinner tables,

not the stories trimmed and pressed

so they fit between coffee cups.

...

You knew the ones that hummed at 3 a.m.

The ones that only spoke

when the house was dark

and my chest forgot its rhythm.

...

I let you see me unarmored.

Let you trace the fault lines

with careful hands.

I called you safe.

And I meant it.

...

You were the place

I set my weapons down.

...

And now you look at me

like I am a language

you never learned.

...

You say my name

like it's unfamiliar in your mouth.

You tell me what I "always do,"

what I " never meant,"

who I "really am."

...

And I stand there,

bleeding quietly,

wondering who you've been studying.

...

Because the person you describe

is a stranger to me.

...

You once knew the exact pitch of my silence.

The way my jaw tightens

when I am trying not to disappear.

You knew the difference between my anger

and my fear.

...

Now you call my fear manipulation.

You call my boundaries cruelty.

You call my exhaustion indifference.

...

How can the one who memorized my pulse

misread my heartbeat?

...

It feels like waking up

and finding the house rearranged —

all the doors in the wrong places,

all the windows bricked over.

...

I keep searching your face

for the version of you

who held my shaking hands

and whispered,

"I see you."

...

Did you?

...

Or did I just feel seen

because I needed to?

...

What terrifies me most

is not that you left.

...

It's that you stayed long enough

to know me better than anyone,

and then used that map

to get lost on purpose.

...

You were my safest place.

And now,

when you speak,

I flinch.

...

Tell me —

when did I become someone

you don't recognize?

...

Or were you never really

looking at me

at all?