The Silent Violence

It didn’t just break my heart.

It gutted me.

Split me open from the inside

no knife, no blood,

just the unbearable ache

of something sacred

being stolen

while I was still holding it.

My trust,

you didn’t drop it.

You hollowed it out

with careful hands,

smiling

while you did it.

I felt it,

when the truth hit.

Like my ribs cracked inward.

Like my lungs collapsed

under the weight of knowing

you were never

what you said you were.

I walked around

with pieces of myself missing,

like a crime scene

no one else could see.

Food lost its taste.

Music scraped the walls of my skin.

Sleep was a place

I couldn’t find.

And when I did,

you were there

in dreams I didn’t ask for,

still lying

with that gentle voice

you used to destroy me.

I wanted to scream.

But nothing came out.

Just the silent violence

of being erased

while still alive.

Do you know what it feels like

to be emptied?

To search your body

for a center

that used to be love

and find only smoke?

That’s what you did.

Not with fists.

But with your absence.

Your mask.

Your other lives

folded neatly behind your smile.

I don’t know how long

it will take to fill the hollow.

But I know what it feels like

to lose your insides

and still be expected

to keep walking.