The day she realized

the day she realized
he loved the idea of her,
and she loved the idea of him,
she felt it in the pauses
between his words,
in the silences she didn’t fill,
in the touches
that lingered but never reached.

he laughed at her jokes
but not at the parts
that hurt,
and she smiled at his stories
while the cracks in his voice
whispered truths
he never spoke.

she loved the version of him
he wanted her to see,
he loved the version of her
that fit neatly
into the story he was telling.
they were puppets
tugged by invisible strings,
clapping for shadows
they thought were real.

and in that quiet moment
she saw it
how fragile they were,
how performative,
how afraid to be seen
without the mask.
and maybe they still loved,
but not each other
just the idea
of who they could be
if they performed long enough.

and she let it go,
not with anger,
not with pain,
but with the gentle ache
of knowing that love
sometimes lives
in the space between
what is real
and what we wish it were.

- Angelica Dsouza.

© 2025 Angelica Dsouza. All rights reserved.