The Demon Left Me Hollow

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.