June 1, 2026

I will never envy the woman you love.
Because I know what it costs to be chosen by you.

I used to envy her.
I spent hours daydreaming
about the way your gaze lingers,
that particular hunger in your eyes
that once convinced me I was something special.

I can picture it still.
Your arms pulling her close,
submerging her in a moment
so intoxicating it feels like magic.
Your lips finding hers
with that soft, deliberate certainty
the kind of kiss that makes a woman believe
she has finally stumbled into a fairytale.

At first, a quiet fire will catch in her chest.
A warmth flooding the hollow, hidden rooms of her heart
that she had long since stopped expecting anyone to find.
She will whisper to her friends
that the search is finally over.
That she has found a man
who can quiet her loudest insecurities
with nothing more than his hand
brushing against her cheek.

But I know the exact moment
the seasons will change in your eyes.

I know how quickly a fairytale
begins to show its teeth.
How the warmth of that same hand
slowly becomes a heavy, suffocating expectation.

She does not yet know
that your love is a borrowed currency.
That soon, you will begin collecting on the debt.

She will learn, the way I learned,
that the man who soothes a woman’s deepest wounds
is the very same man
who will quietly plant new ones.
Slowly, she will begin apologizing for everything.
She will twist herself into knots
just to keep you comfortable,
mistaking her own exhaustion
for devotion.

The sting of rejection
still catches in my throat sometimes.
It is a bitter ache,
even when you know it is medicine.
But I would rather stand alone
in the freezing truth
than stay warm
inside a burning house.

I have learned that being so rejected
was just a cruel, disguised way
of being set free.

I do not envy the pedestal you have placed her on.
I know exactly how far the fall is
when you inevitably step away.

So I am leaving with my bruises,
unburdened by the shrapnel
I spent years trying to dodge.

So let her have the intoxicating beginning.
Let her have the magic.
Let her have the illusion.

I will never envy her.

But somewhere, from a distance,
I will grieve for her.

Because people don’t survive
loving someone like you twice.