She Wanted My Softness After Setting Fire to It

Some women don’t want you.

They want access to the version of you they broke.

The gentle one. The one who used to answer fast. Speak openly. Stay up late explaining his silences to someone who was never quiet long enough to hear them.

And when they lose that version — when he becomes someone who doesn’t reach back, who watches instead of reacts — they come back. Not because they’ve changed. But because they want to know if they still have the password to the version of you they buried.


She came back like that.

With a voice that softened only after she’d finished sharpening every word.

With those eyes that only filled when she felt him slipping from under her influence.

With questions disguised as memories: “Do you still drink that terrible coffee?”

And then the confession that wasn’t one: “I miss how calm I felt when you were around.”


But I’m not that calm anymore.

I don’t break my silences for women who didn’t listen the first time.

I don’t explain myself to someone who mistook my softness for a landing pad.

I don’t answer messages that feel like rituals instead of repentance.


She wanted to revisit the version of me that forgave without saying it.

The version who took her mood swings like weather — inevitable, unchangeable, tolerated.


She asked me to call. I didn’t.

She sent another message three days later. I read it, once.


It said:

“I liked you better before.”


That’s the thing.

She’s right.

She liked me better broken. Because I stayed soft while she stayed sharp.


And now?

Now I’m made of the blade she kept cutting into.

But she won’t get to touch it.

Not again.

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