The Ghost of HELL

Longing stares have ended,

but the echoes still linger in the hollows of my chest.

I feel disgusted with myself—

for cradling a phantom version of him

that was never real to begin with.

Why me?

Out of all the girls he could have broken,

why did he choose me to be his plaything?

All I ever did was love him with everything pure in me. And he made it seem as though we were dancing to the same song,

like he heard the same melody I did.

How did I not see it was only me swaying in the dark?

I gave him love, not games.

I gave him softness, not strategy.

But he saw me as a child,

as if my love was too small to matter—

like I was a toy, not a girl with a heart that could bruise.

I was just a girl who fell for the wrong guy.

But nobody warns you that bad guys wear kindness on their faces.

And oh, how I gaslight myself into believing he cared.

For years, I clung to the idea

that maybe—just maybe—

he loved me too, even for a moment, even for a day.

I called it yearn.

But it was denial wearing hope’s clothes.

It’s pathetic, isn’t it?

I knew his history.

I heard every rumor, saw every red flag,

but I swore my love would be the exception.

I swore what we had was real—

that I wasn’t a fool, that it wasn’t all in my head.

(Even now, a small, quiet voice still asks: What if it was real?)

I hate that voice. I hate it as much as I hate him.

Time is supposed to dull the ache,

but time only teaches me how to carry it.

I tell myself it wasn’t my fault—

that I didn’t do anything wrong.

But the hate grows like ivy in my ribs.

I’m angry for the girl I was,

for the 15-year-old girl who sat with her pain in silence,

believing she wasn’t enough,

believing she had to be harder, colder, quieter, smaller—

all because two selfish lovers couldn’t hold their own insanity and insecurities.

I wish I could reach back and hold her.

I wish I could tell her: “It was never you. It was never your fault.”

But I can only hold myself now.

I can only watch as the girl I was fades into the woman I am.

And I am happy now.

I have love now—real love, not illusions.

But there’s a part of me that will never forgive him, forgive them.

Not because I haven’t healed,

but because some wounds deserve to be remembered.

I wish them misery.

I wish them the loneliness they handed me.

I wish them the kind of ache that festers quietly for years.

Im not a good person with a big heart. 

I am just…

a hollow thing, carrying shadows that no longer belong to me,

but still cling like second skin.

I hold his name between my teeth,

biting down until my gums bleed—

a quiet protest no one hears.

I am just…

the sum of every silent scream I swallowed whole,

while they laughed, unaware of the weight they left behind.

I stitched myself together with the jagged edges they carved,

and now I bleed from the seams,

slow, like a wound that never learned to close.

I wish them the emptiness that stares back at me at 3 AM,

when even the dark feels too crowded with memories.

I wish them to taste the echo of their own absence,

to hear it hum beneath their ribs long after the world forgets their name.

I was never cruel—

just broken in ways that couldn’t fit into kindness.

I held his hurt as if it were my own,

and when he left,

He took parts of me I never offered.

I wish them the weight of a love they cannot return to.

The gnawing ache of an apology that arrives too late,

when the grave they dug in my chest

has already bloomed into something unrecognizable.

I am not a hero.

I am not even a survivor.

I am just someone who remembers too much,

loves too deeply,

and carries ghosts like they are sacred.

I wish them nothing—

nothing but the sharp edge of remembering me,

when they least expect it,

when their hearts are soft and unguarded.

And I hope it destroys them, destroy him

the way they destroyed me, he destroy me—

piece by piece,

breath by breath.

I’m not sorry for that.

Not even a little.

Because my heart still hurts.

And I deserve to let it.

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Inspired by the diary of a 15-year-old me. 

The tortured poet in me shan't die.