Intermission - by Quillnomzy

You keep me like a secret.Like something precious enough to holdbut too shameful to show.I have learned the weight of your silence,the way you say my name in the darkbut forget it by morning.They ask me if I know what I'm doing,loving someone who belongs to someone else.And I do. I know exactly what this is.I am the hangman in someone else's love story.The villain they will talk aboutwhen they reconcile,when they choose each other againand leave me in the wreckage of what we were.I know the red flags.I've counted them.Memorized them.Worn them like medals I didn't earn. The way you never post me.The way your phone stays face down when we're together.The way you leave before dawnlike I'm something to be ashamed of.But I stay.Because true love breathes salvation back into me,even when it's killing me slowly.Because you are my torturer and my remedy,the wound and the balm,the reason I hurt and the only thing that soothes it. I hate that I love you.I hate that I've taught myself to be small enoughto fit into the spaces they leave behind.The late nights.The last-minute calls.The moments when they're not enoughand you remember I exist.I am always the bridesmaid.Never the bride.Always the backup plan.Never the choice. I watch you build a life with someone elsewhile I collect the scraps of your affectionlike they're enough to survive on.And maybe they are.Maybe I've convinced myselfthat half of you is better than all of nothing.That being wanted sometimesis close enough to being loved.But it's not.I know it's not.Still, I open the door when you knock.Still, I answer when you call.Still, I let you inknowing you will leave again,knowing I am temporary,knowing I am the intermissionin a story where I will never be the ending.They say the hangman turns her heart to stone.That she learns not to feel,not to want,not to hope. But I haven't learned that yet.I still feel everything.I still want you in the daylight,not just the dark.I still hope that one day you'll choose me.Even though I know you won't.Even though I know I'm not the one you're building a future with.Even though I know I'm just the one you run towhen the life you chose gets too heavy.I am the hangman.I have stolen you from someonewho doesn't even know I exist.And I envy her.Not because she has youbut because she doesn't have to share.She gets your mornings.Your plans.Your promises.I get your guilt.Your apologies.Your "I wish things were different."But they're not different.And I've accepted that. I've accepted that loving you means loving you incompletely.That I will never be the bride,never walk down an aisle toward you,never be the one you choose when it matters.I will always be the secret.The almost.The maybe.The "if things were different."And I hate it.But I accept it.Because my torturer became my remedy.Because the person who breaks meis the only one who knows how to put me back together.Because true loveeven the kind that only exists in shadowsbreathes salvation back into me.Even if it's killing me.Even if I'm the hangman in my own story too,letting this love take meone breath at a time.

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