What He Polished

He loved the idea of perfection— how it looked from a distance, how carefully it could be arranged.

He was always already finished, always intact.

You tried to turn me into something similar. Your attention came dressed as generosity. Gifts placed where questions should have been. Objects instead of curiosity.

You learned my surface quickly and stopped there. You never asked who I was when no one was watching. You preferred the version of me that reflected you well— quietly impressive, appropriately contained.

You wanted a woman who fit. Into rooms. Into photos. Into the future you rehearsed.

To love you would have meant mistaking control for care. Accepting a locked door as devotion. Letting myself be curated until nothing unruly remained.

You didn’t want to know me. Knowing complicates things. You wanted certainty. You wanted polish. You wanted to believe that love could be acquired without listening.

I wasn’t ungrateful. I was unseen.

There is a part of me that resists display. That refuses to be perfected into silence. It doesn’t perform well under glass.

I need someone who doesn’t flinch at what can’t be managed. Who doesn’t confuse admiration with intimacy. Who stays when the illusion breaks.

You tried to buy my becoming.

I chose to keep it.

I left without spectacle, without apology not because I was careless, but because I would not live as someone else’s finished product.

Being perfect was never the same

as being loved.