The weight I carried (poem)

The Weight I Carried

I wasn’t perfect.
But I was exhausted.
Not from loving—but from being the lifeline for someone who refused to stand on his own.

I asked for a day off.
He showed up at my house.
The day before that, he was waiting in my car at work.
He said I should be happy to see him.
But my heart sank.

He couldn’t stand to be alone.
He couldn’t stand to let me breathe.
I’d spend hours at his flat, then more hours at mine with him still there. And when I got up to leave, he’d sulk.
“I have things to do,” I’d say. “I need to feed my kids.”
He’d say he couldn’t help how he felt.

But somehow, I was always the one who had to fix it.

The more he clung, the more I pulled away.
Not because I stopped caring—
But because I started drowning.

He said I dumped him too many times.
Like my boundaries were to blame for his betrayals.
Like asking for space justified him reaching out to other women—every single time.

I remember the silence after an argument.
And how fast his phone would light up.
Fifteen minutes after a breakup, he was already making plans with someone else.
And every time, I told myself not to care.
But each time, it chipped away at me.
A little more of me disappeared.

He always needed someone.
Anyone—so long as they didn’t ask him to look in the mirror.

But I did.
I asked.
I begged.
I cried without sound for him to see the damage. To see me.

But he never did.
Because Mr. Pain doesn’t listen.
He just fills the silence with noise.

Now, I’m not holding the mirror anymore.
I’m putting it down.
He can face his own reflection—or not.
It’s not my job.

I’m tired.
Not broken.
Not bitter.
Just done.

MissT.

Fighting for freedom and peace within