Shaping Me

You chipped away at me until there was nothing left you recognized enough to love.

And the cruelest part was that you called it shaping.

You said you were carving away what did not belong, cutting off the edges that made me difficult to hold.

So I stood still while you took the blade to me.

Piece by piece. Habit by habit. Hope by hope.

You thought you were uncovering the version of me you wanted.

But you were not sculpting. You were erasing.

And somewhere between the first cut and the last piece falling to the floor, you stripped away the things you would one day miss most.

The softness. The patience. The way I looked at you before loving you became something I had to survive.

You kept carving until I became quieter, colder, harder to reach.

Then one day you looked at what was left and wondered where I had gone.

But I had not gone anywhere.

I was still there, buried beneath everything you demanded I stop being.

You thought you were removing what you did not want.

You never realized you were cutting away what you needed.

And when you finally stepped back to admire what you had made, you discovered the tragedy:

you had shaped me into someone who no longer needed you.