It was that I didn’t need you in any case. 

Still, I attached my strings to you. 

It is that I don’t need any kind of attention or validation from you; I am fine on my own. 

Not even needing any gentle smooches from you! 

It was that I could love you without you being present from a distance. 

I could love you in my imagination—build your character appealing to delude my mind. 

It was that I made hypotheses and assumptions. 

That you are not evil, you are not bad,

I ignored the facts.

I just kept pacifying myself, leaving me unsatisfied behind. 

It was that I never cared for myself. 

I always thought about you. 

It was that, I so unloved myself that all the love was left I gave it only to you! 

I gave so much until the breaking point emerged—

I gave so much that it crossed the limits and showed me the threat—

That it’s time now to love myself, to think about my goddamn own self,

I had to unlearn loving you. 

I had to prioritize myself before you. 

I had to learn very bitterly that narcissistic love comes first. 

We love others not to forget us, but to reconnect ourselves with our gone parts. 

I had to learn that self-love comes before the other. 

You made me selfish. 

Now, I, but only I, none other than myself, matter! 

If I am not gaining anything for myself,

It is nothing or a dead call to me. 

If not beneficial to me, then I am not into it!

Not anymore! 

Life is unpredictable, and the course of lives changes.

This cycle is for me. 

My season, welcome to my reign-

I will carve out my valleys with my vein! 

This season, this aura is not for feign-

Those who are false, those who are meek, 

Can get lost from my coverage, from my chain,

Because there is nothing to deliver except gain—

If not, deliverance is equal—how do we even sustain?! 

Claim your worth, darling. 

Claim it with a voice raised! 

©® Farheen Akter Bhuian Nancy

2023, DU