Our Ego Will Destroy Us

You never raised your voice,

you didn’t have to.
You bent the air instead,
twisted words until they fit your reflection,
until I no longer trusted my own memory

of what was said,
what was done, what was real.

You wore perfection like armor,
polished daily, never scratched…
at least not where anyone could see.
And I stood there,
holding every fracture you denied,
trying to glue together a truth
you insisted never broke.

You had to be right.
Always.
Even when right meant
rewriting me.

I shrank in your certainty,
in your quiet corrections,
in the way you'd tilt your head
like confusion lived only in me.

You made doubt feel like a disease
I carried alone.

And still,
I stayed longer than I should have,
waiting for the moment
you’d choose honesty over pride,
me over your reflection.

But ego is a jealous god.
It doesn’t share.

So one day
I chose silence

not the kind you gave me,
heavy and suffocating
but the kind that frees.

I blocked you
with trembling hands
that felt more like wings
than fear.

I thought you would come knocking
like before

find a way through the cracks,
call, insist, return
as if leaving was impossible.

But this time,
you didn’t.
And somehow
that hurt differently.

Not because I wanted you back,
but because it proved
what I had started to fear
that I was never the exception,
just another reflection
you could live without.

Still,
I breathe easier now.
Because love shouldn’t feel like
a courtroom,
and I was tired
of always being in a trial.

Our ego will destroy us

yours almost destroyed me.
But mine,
finally,
saved me.