Sigmund Gilbert

you never became a woman

you moved like a woman

talked like one

smiled like one

breathed like one—

but when the storm came

you vanished

like a girl playing dress-up

in a grown woman’s clothes.

 

you never became a woman.

you just found people

who let you stay a girl.

 

they gave you permission

to run instead of rise

to point fingers instead of face mirrors

to call comfort “strength”

and silence “safety.”

 

they didn’t teach you truth.

they taught you how to hide.

how to turn your wounds into weapons

and call it healing.

 

you repeated their bitterness

like scripture

and wore their hate

like it made you holy.

 

you never stood in your own voice.

just echoed the loudest one around you.

you never carried the weight of love.

you just wanted to be carried.

 

i see it now.

 

i didn’t lose a woman—

i lost the shadow of one.

 

you never really stood beside me.

you just leaned on me

until standing hurt too much.

 

and when it did?

you left.

quiet.

cold.

unfinished.

 

so no—

you didn’t destroy me.

you revealed yourself.

 

and i let go

not because i stopped loving you

but because i finally saw

you were never going to love me

from a place that was whole.