CPTSD: She Left

What Was Taken, What Remains

It didn’t begin with love,

but with wounds

recognizing themselves.

She was hunger—soft, enduring,

still searching for a mother

in every open hand.

He was control—shaped by absence,

learning early

that power feels safer than pain.

They met like echoes.

She gave more

when things fell apart.

He took more

when she did.

A quiet unraveling—money withheld,

truth bent,

hope stretched thin

until it almost disappeared.

And when everything broke,

he reached for her

like rescue—arms full of promises

built from the ruin he made.

She finally left him.

She had to.

But even exhaustion

cannot bury truth forever.

One day,

through the weight of it all,

she saw—

this was never love.

She left

with less than she gave,

but more than she had before:

herself.

dg

Poems