Failure to Launch (Words About the Watcher)

You wanted me.
Not beside you, not near you—
but as you.
First to possess me,
then to become me,
then to break me open
until nothing of me remained
but fragments you could gather
and call your own.

You shadowed my steps,
echoed my words,
studied my life like scripture,
believing devotion
could rewrite your emptiness.
Single-white-femaling your way
through the ruins of my reflection,
you mistook obsession for becoming.

But envy is a hollow diet.
You starved on it.
Gnawed at my edges
until you swallowed only smoke.
Still, you linger—
jealous eyes fixed
on the life you will never build,
because watching consumed you
more than living ever could.

You could have planted your own garden.
You could have spoken your own name.
Instead you clung to the fantasy
that crushing me
would crown you.
But here I am—
thriving, rising,
ever beyond your reach.

And you—
still earthbound,
chained to your obsession,
paralysed by the pursuit of a life
that was never yours to take.

This is your inheritance:
not my ruin,
not my life,
not even my shadow.
Only the vacant silence
of your own failure to launch.

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