The Things They Don’t See

The Things They Don’t See

They see the smiles.

They see the laughter.

They see me standing in the light

and think it means I loved it here.

They point to photographs,

to moments in public,

and say, Look—look how happy you were.

But they never had the key.

The inside was never theirs to open.

That door belonged to my husband alone.

What they call happiness

was only me surviving obligation.

The smiles were real in flickers—

yes, genuine in flashes—

but gravely disingenuous,

because nothing here filled me.

This town never gave me belonging.

It never gave me purpose.

It gave me duty.

It gave me responsibility.

Obligation was the only thing

that kept me standing.

And obligation is not love.

Obligation is not connection.

It is a weight you shoulder

until your shoulders break.

That is why leaving was never hard.

There is no heartbreak in walking away

from what never sustained you.

But it is goddamn suffocating

to be stuck in it.

People here think

they brought me happiness,

that being here brought me happiness.

They were never the spring

from which my hope flowed.

They were never that before him.

They never could be.

I made the best

of a god-awful situation

because I had one person

who truly knew what was going on inside me.

And now, without him,

I am surrounded by faces

who think they know my joy

but do not know my truth.

I left them because I had to.

I left because obligation

is not a life.

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