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I flip through our pictures

and the memories rush back

like a tide I forgot how strong it was.

Some make me smile

a quiet, aching smile

the kind that knows joy once lived here

even if it couldn’t stay.

Our first trip together

felt magical, unreal,

like the world had opened just for us.

And somewhere between laughter and hotel sheets

we had our first fight

small, maybe, at the time

but looking back

it feels like the first crack in the glass.

Photo by photo,

I can see it now:

where I was gripping myself tightly,

trying to stay grounded,

trying to stay me

for him.

How heavy that became.

How tired I was.

That first fight was my breaking point,

even if I didn’t name it then.

And as the images keep turning,

another truth settles in—slow, unwelcome, real:

while I was draining myself to survive us,

I was draining him too.

He hurt me in ways that still sting,

ways that changed me.

But I see now

that harm doesn’t always arrive all at once

sometimes it seeps in,

quiet, gradual, mutual.

And suddenly I’m holding everything at once:

sadness,

guilt,

shame,

longing,

anger

a thousand emotions

crowding the same small space in my chest.

Now I sit empty,

not because nothing mattered,

but because so much did.

Because love lived here

and so did loss.

Because we both broke,

trying to hold on.