I was the flame that waited
while you danced with shadows,
the open hand
you mistook for emptiness.

You broke me—
not with fists,
but with silence,
with the way you looked past
everything I gave
as if it were air.

I became the echo
of a name you never called,
a prayer unanswered,
a seat left cold
in the temple of your heart.

You made me unchosen—
as if love were a lottery
and I held the wrong ticket.
But I was never a number.
I was the storm.
the sunrise,
the poem you’ll never write
because you feared its truth.

Now I rise,
not to be chosen,
but to choose myself.
To gather the pieces
you left scattered.
and build a crown
from the wreckage