You don’t even call him yours
not out loud.
Not to your friends,
not in your phone,
not even in your prayers.
But somehow
he still found a way
to live in the spaces
between your responsibilities
between school,
between shifts,
between packing lunches
and being fully available
whereever your needed.
He fits
where he was never placed.
And now…
there’s them
there’s HER.
Watching from a distance
you pretend it doesn’t hurt,
while juggling your life
while juggling your children’s lives,
that actually need you,
and still
this one man
unravels you quietly.
She doesn’t carry what you carry.
She doesn’t know the version of you
that shows up exhausted,
still giving
still loving,
still trying.
She just gets him
in the light.
And maybe that’s what stings
you were there in the shadows.
When he was unsure.
When he was broken.
When he needed someone
to hold him together.
You gave him that.
Silently.
Loyally.
Without a title.
So when she laughs with him
freely, openly
and he leans in like it’s easy..
you don’t interrupt.
You don’t question.
You don’t even flinch the way you want to.
Because what would you say?
“That’s my man?’
He isn’t.
“That’s someone I love?”
Too complicated.
“That’s someone who chose me?”
He didn’t.
So you stand there
in your strength
the same strength that carries your children
your dreams,
your future name
and you swallow it.
Not because your weak.
But because you finally understand.
Ashley Monae 