The Choice Was Yours

I am not going to explain myself.

I have nothing left to prove.

I know who I am.
I know my heart.
I know that I am a good soul.

I will not sit in judgment of you, because judgment is not mine to give.

It is not yours either.

If you cannot see the truth,
it is no longer my responsibility to convince you of it.

If you do not believe in me,
I will not exhaust myself trying to earn your belief.

You made the choice to leave.
You made the choice to stop connecting.

I stayed.

I reached out.

I tried to salvage every shred of our relationship that might still have remained untouched.

You chose not to answer those attempts.

You chose distance.

You chose silence.

You chose not to receive the love I continued to offer, even when loving you from a distance hurt me.

And I have finally understood something:

I deserve more than repeatedly asking someone to see my heart.

I deserve more than chasing a relationship I did not walk away from.

I deserve more than carrying the entire weight of keeping a connection alive.

I can love you and still stop reaching.

I can leave the door unlocked without standing in the doorway waiting.

I can know what I offered without needing you to acknowledge its value.

I can let you make your choice.

And I can make mine.

I choose to stop proving.

I choose to stop chasing.

I choose to stop explaining myself to people who have already decided what they believe about me.

The choice to leave was yours.

The choice to stop reaching is now mine.