The Days You Have Stolen

How many days have you stolen from me?
How many mornings did I wake beneath a sky
that no longer felt like mine?
How many evenings did I fold into shadows,
pretending not to hear the echo of your presence
just beyond the light?

This isn’t fear.
This is brokenness.
The slow and silent undoing
of a life that once belonged to me.
A thousand soft moments—
soured.
A thousand bright ones—
dimmed.

You took more than time.
You took ease.
You took safety.
You took the hush in my shoulders
that used to mean rest.
You stained my peace with your watching.
You turned my name into something sharp.

There were whole seasons I did not live.
Only survived.
Breath by breath.
Heartbeat by brittle heartbeat.
I smiled less.
I stepped lighter.
I made myself small
so you might not notice me anymore.

But you always did.
Because that’s what monsters do.
They notice what they can unravel.

Still, I remained.
I remained through the questions,
the disbelief,
the way the world called me paranoid
instead of endangered.

I remained
as the days fell away—
one by one,
like petals pulled from a flower
by someone who never meant to love it.

This is not a poem.
It is a reckoning.

This is not fear.
It is mourning.

This is not weakness.
It is the aftermath of surviving
what should never have touched me.

And if you come close again,
you will find
I am no longer made of softness.
I am the flame you lit.
And I have learned how to burn
without apology.