Amelia James Poetry

you said you wanted to marry me.
not in a grand gesture,
just softly—
like something you already believed.

you gave me your grandfather’s ring
and placed it in my hand
like a promise
you hadn’t finished writing.

and i built a future around that sentence.
let it echo
through the quiet parts of my day.

i imagined holidays with your family,
mornings in a kitchen
we didn’t live in yet.
i let myself believe
that love could sound like this.

you called me soft.
called me rare.
said i was the only one
who ever felt like home.

and i believed you.

i memorized the rhythm of your voice
when you were tired.
learned the pauses
you didn’t mean to leave.
started folding myself down
just enough
to keep you comfortable.

the changes were quiet at first.
nothing loud.
nothing you asked for.
just me,
learning how to disappear
without leaving.

i thought if i became easier to love,
you might stay longer.
so i kept changing
whatever i thought
you were growing tired of.

i didn’t notice
how the edits started small—
just softening here,
pulling back there—
until even my reflection
began to look like someone else.

i straightened my hair
to look more like her—
because i thought maybe
you liked it better that way.

no longer
the girl with curls
you once said
you’d been falling for for years.
just a quieter version
of the one who showed up
after me.

and while i was shrinking,
you were sending her songs.
letting her laugh
fill the space
my silence left behind.

you stopped looking at me
like i was the thing
you’d always been searching for—
and started looking through me
like i’d already left.

and still—
i stayed.
waited.
hoped you’d look back
and see me
where you left me.

maybe you’d see
i was holding the weight
of everything you promised—
hemorrhaging hope
and bleeding anyway.

but you didn’t.

you walked out
like it had always been a door.

and when i finally broke—
quietly,
all at once—
you called it a scene.
said i was too much.

but really,
i was just
the girl who stayed
too long
in a story
you stopped telling.

i still dream in your vocabulary.
still wake up
reaching for a voice
that stopped calling me home.

and the worst part is—
you meant it
when you said it.
you just didn’t mean it
for me.

-Amelia James