Maybe it was jealousy.141Please respect copyright.PENANAIYcPHvBkta
Or maybe… it was something harder to name.
That quiet ache in your chest when someone you care about starts smiling a little more —141Please respect copyright.PENANAVf5sPtNCVh
but not because of you.
I kept asking myself:141Please respect copyright.PENANAJW2Zj8SB10
Was I being possessive? Was I trying to cage something that was never mine to begin with?
But no.141Please respect copyright.PENANA0ErhcKNJOI
It wasn’t that.141Please respect copyright.PENANAfXIin93mNB
It never was.
I wasn’t trying to protect you from someone.141Please respect copyright.PENANA4X0JH9VnOg
I wasn’t trying to compete.
I was just scared.141Please respect copyright.PENANA88mIpeEEfX
Terrified, actually.141Please respect copyright.PENANAVs7j3qL25C
That maybe... Ren would take you away.
But then —141Please respect copyright.PENANAi1sA7oNYgb
one long evening, sitting with my thoughts louder than the world around —141Please respect copyright.PENANAWyQAm83TMn
I understood something.
People don’t get stolen.141Please respect copyright.PENANAQi1erWjsed
They drift.
Toward what makes them feel lighter.141Please respect copyright.PENANA4UBBzGKIek
Toward the sun they didn’t know they missed.
And sometimes love —141Please respect copyright.PENANAxg2s4hfLWX
love makes us believe that there’s nothing brighter than what we have right now.141Please respect copyright.PENANAuAjOv07sed
That this, this, is the brightest moment the world can ever offer.
But that’s a lie love tells.141Please respect copyright.PENANAfccZ5Qg924
Because love is blind,141Please respect copyright.PENANAF7LJOdl1Is
and people are not.
And so I questioned it all.141Please respect copyright.PENANAatQUiFNkVn
Not love.141Please respect copyright.PENANAjQIcXDNcUD
But the things we confuse for love.
The need to be someone’s only.141Please respect copyright.PENANAhW1baOcWYN
The quiet wish that they’ll never find better than you.141Please respect copyright.PENANAAaAW26JXvR
The fear that if they do — they’ll forget you ever existed.
Is that love?141Please respect copyright.PENANAvc9nIg88q0
Or is that greed in disguise?
Maybe the worst kind of greed —141Please respect copyright.PENANA48TCOaTYK5
the one that wants to own a heart that was only meant to be held gently,141Please respect copyright.PENANAdwUDq9bQsS
not gripped tight.
You see,141Please respect copyright.PENANAR7Rk5t4Ebm
I wasn’t jealous.141Please respect copyright.PENANAW65XbUA59W
Not really.
I was just scared of losing us.141Please respect copyright.PENANAPw0MvzWULl
The us we created in tiny moments —141Please respect copyright.PENANAocV6RyaQ7B
walking beside buses, laughing at nonsense,141Please respect copyright.PENANA6UVOwyX3Vk
holding on to silences like they were the most honest things we ever said.
I was scared of losing that version of you I named Forevermore.141Please respect copyright.PENANALUmEfBT4LX
And the version of me that only ever existed around you.
But then —141Please respect copyright.PENANAHSGnfL3kCc
I also realized something else.
It’s not someone else that breaks two people apart.141Please respect copyright.PENANAZHSBxsQms2
It’s not Ren. Or time. Or coincidence.
It’s us.141Please respect copyright.PENANAzWgQokl8ZT
Me. And you.141Please respect copyright.PENANAMwnvQY7yJh
Choosing, or failing, to hold on.141Please respect copyright.PENANAk3uVesDxjN
Letting go, not because someone better came along…141Please respect copyright.PENANAfDHT63QlHx
but because we forgot how to see each other like we used to.
And that’s what broke my heart the most.
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