I was stone and storm—
a man made of direction,
waking before dawn
with iron in my chest
and purpose burning like coal.
I built with hands
that never shook,
and loved with a spine
that never bent.
I knew the road,
and I walked it alone if I had to.
Then she came—
smiling like salvation,
but hollow behind the eyes.
Not empty—
just hungry.
A soul-sucking thing
wearing soft skin and sweet words.
She didn’t take from me.
She fed from me.
Slow.
Not a thief—
a parasite.
She drank my joy in sips.
Unraveled my roots with whispers.
And I, blind in devotion,
mistook her weakness
for something worth saving.
I gave.
And gave.
And gave.
Until the man I was
was no longer there—
just a husk
shivering in a house we called “love.”
Then one day—
no warning.
No thank you.
No funeral.
She left.
Found another host.
Another man to bleed dry.
And I?
I laid in the ash
of all I had been
and finally stopped apologizing
for surviving her.
Now—
My hands are mine again.
My voice doesn’t shake.
I wake up without dread.
I eat without guilt.
I pray without begging.
She made me hollow.
But God made me whole.
Not with the pieces she left,
but with new steel
forged in the fire
she lit and ran from.
She never broke me.
She showed me
what I’d never let close again.
And the man I am now?
He doesn’t beg to be loved.
He builds,
becomes,
and burns bright enough
that no demon dares draw near.