When I met you, you were already a broken vase

When I met you, you were already a broken vase, sharp shards hidden beneath your cold and distant skin, But I was still whole, believing love was the force that makes two souls forget their unhealed wounds. I mistook your silence for gentleness, and your distance for the depth of an unknown and mysterious sea, I thought if I bled enough light, you'd find your way back to yourself and maybe even to me. But love isn't salvation, it's a slow drowning when only one swims, and I sank with your name in my mouth, Like a prayer no god ever answered, for you were too busy with your perverse games. Sport was your habit, but so was playing with others' feelings, and I, naive, didn't know I was your favorite victim, You emptied me slowly, silently, until I no longer knew which part of me was yours and which was completely missing. You didn't shatter me at once, but wore me down like water erodes rock, until I became an empty cave, without echo, Now, when I look in the mirror, I don't see myself, but someone who tried to repair you, Forgetting how to survive her own pain, this love that won't let go is a hand around my throat, It tightens when I try to breathe, for the truth is you're still in my heart, no matter how much I try to forget you. I'm tormented by the thought that I believed in love's healing power, when in fact it can be a slow poison, That seeps into veins and poisons every thought, every hope, leaving behind only bitter regrets. You're like a melody endlessly repeating in my mind, a painful refrain I can't stop, And I'm just an out-of-tune instrument, still trying to play a melody you've long forgotten. In long, cold nights, your memory is like a ghost haunting the dark corners of my soul, Whispering unspoken promises and unfulfilled dreams, and I, captive in my own pain, still hope for the impossible. For although I know you're toxic to me, like a drug I can't quit, I continue to search for you in every stranger, Hoping that one day, I'll find my way back to myself, or perhaps to a version of me that never met you.