The Argument

It began as conversation,
the way fire begins as friction—
innocent, almost warm.
A spark between ideas,
not yet an inferno.

You smiled, thinking
we were building something:
a bridge, maybe,
a place where words could meet
and still mean something gentle.
But you mistook performance for presence.

Then it came—
the shift, sharp as a snapped string.
You raised your voice like a weapon,
called me naïve, hysterical,
as if volume could make cruelty sound like conviction.
And I stood there,
watching the boy I used to know
evaporate behind his own certainty.

You think it’s victory,
this flattening of nuance,
this scorched earth you call debate.
But all I see is a man
clutching the ruins of his empathy
and calling it strength.

Later, you’ll feel something
that tastes almost like regret.
You’ll call it indigestion,
or late-night thought,
but it will be shame—
brief, unbearable,
and quickly buried.

And I—
I will not write back.
I will not explain
that I still miss who you were
before you confused cruelty for clarity,
before you forgot
that intelligence is nothing
without kindness.

Because I know now:
you can’t reason with the armour of sexism.
You can only step away
before it cuts you too.

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