The One Who Was broken

I don’t understand.
I don’t.
How a human being can tear another apart
with such precision—
slow, deliberate, practiced—
and walk away
as if they hadn’t just undone a life.

I don’t understand
how cruelty is allowed to pass as character.
How silence is mistaken for peace.
How damage is dismissed
if it doesn’t leave bruises that show.

They broke me.
Not all at once,
but in pieces—
a dismantling done in daylight
while the world looked on
and called it a misunderstanding.

They lied,
and I lost.
They pushed,
and I shattered.
They took everything,
and still—
I am the one who must gather the wreckage
while they go unburdened,
unwatched,
unquestioned.

I am the one who shakes when the phone rings.
Who can’t sleep without replaying the sound of their voices.
Who doubts her memory,
her worth,
her right to be whole again.

And still—
They get the benefit of the doubt.
The gentle voice.
The second chance.
The silence of systems
that should have stopped them
long before I ever met them.

Society does not protect the broken.
It makes them prove it.

And if you cannot hold up your pain
in a way that is palatable—
if your grief is too sharp,
too loud,
too complex—
you are deemed unstable,
not wounded.
You become the problem
instead of the proof.

So here I am.
The collateral damage of someone else’s comfort.
The aftermath of someone else’s ease.

And all I can do is survive.
Quietly.
Bravely.
While they are never made to look back.