They didn’t love me. They leased me. Short-term emotional rental with all the upgrades: Sarcasm package. Trauma tolerance. Loyalty with roadside assistance.
I came with bells, whistles, and just enough tragedy to make them feel like they were doing charity with a punchline.
I was never the forever friend. Just the flexible one. The fill-in-the-blank. The guy who had a solution, a couch, a contact, a casserole, a joke, a late-night ride, a laugh track when your life went rerun.
You didn’t ask if I had the capacity. You assumed I was the capacity. Unlimited. Unshakable. Disposable.
You called me resourceful, as if that wasn’t code for "We bled you dry," as if my worth was in how well I solved problems that weren’t mine to begin with.
You mistook my generosity for a discount. My boundaries for malfunction. My silence for approval.
I kept showing up. Because I thought maybe one day, someone would stay after the fix. Not because I was useful, but because I was mine.
But I was the box you borrowed, the cart you pushed, the wrench you returned to a drawer you never labeled.
I was always going to rust, invisible, on someone else's shelf.
Until I wasn’t.
Until I started saying no without an explanation. Until I became more than the help desk you cried to at midnight, then left on read.
Now? I don’t get used. I get chosen.
Not because I serve a purpose. Because I am a person. And I’m finally done mistaking demand for devotion.
