Member Poem

The Love I Choked On

By Wania Sajjad

A smile I thought was engraved on my face
Craved by love, now buried beneath your absence.
I want to write about love blooming from a simple hi
I can’t — I cut my flesh to preserve our heartbeats, but you tore the stitches for new lips.

You bruised my soul,
Wounded the heart that once was yours.
You swore we were more anchored than the Big Dipper
So why'd you leave me rusted,
For the girl who mocked my existence,
Who crushed me, who bullied me.
Now you parade her like a trophy.

But still my thoughts echoed your name.
Your voice—drugged in my veins.
All my life I hated pain,
But loving you made me a masochist.

Like a hair tie,
I was always nearby—
looped around your storms,
tightened to hold your mess in place.
Stretched until I lost shape,
but never let go.
Never once asked
if I wanted to stay.

I treated myself like a wall
Painted to match your soul’s palette.
But you chose a curtain,
Hung it over me.
Wasn’t I your eternal sunlight before the eclipse?

You told me once:
“Explore the country—not the map.”

Then you cherished a lily of the valley
Soft, venom-laced, everything I’m not.
I'm not mad. I’m just… confused.

You told me,
"You're a candle, not wax.
You may not be the prettiest face,
But your soul makes up for that."

To match your impossible version of ‘enough,’
I burned what you hated, melted down,
Wrecked myself just to end up in your past.

But I guess
No—I know it wasn’t enough.
Because the girl whose dark gaze swallowed you like a void
Is everything I feared—and everything I’m not.

I’m stuck in the shape you once called enough,
Trapped in the past,
Everything’s a reminder of those miserable cries.

You hooked my heart like a fish on a rod.
You swore the world's unbearable and
I'm your only guide.
But the whole time…I wasn't living,
I was surviving.

Still, I stitched our memories into my scars.
I wasn’t desperate
You were my necessity.
You were my will to breathe.

Funny.
Now you're the reason I’m suffocating
And wounded deep