THE ANATOMY OF A FALSE IDOL

a lesson in illusion

I used to think you were oxygen-

a necessary ache,

a vital ache,

the kind of ache a body learns to worship

when it’s forgotten how to breathe on its own.

but clarity arrives slowly,

and then all at once-

a blade between the ribs

of an old delusion.

and now I understand the chemistry:

you were never air.

just a draft in a collapsing house,

a passing breeze I mistook for salvation

because I was tired enough

to call anything that moved

a miracle.

I didn’t love you.

I loved the reflection I mistook for depth-

the way desperation can polish even a shallow pool

until it looks like an ocean in the dark.

you were never vast.

I was just drowning.

you always spoke in half-truths and riddles-

not because you were profound,

but because you liked the sound

of me unraveling your mystery.

you weaponized subtlety 

the way desperate men weaponize tenderness:

from a safe distance,

with plausible deniability.

you never noticed how hard you prayed

to the altar of your own reflection.

how every thought you spoke

carried the posture of a sermon,

how you mistook your monologues 

for revelations,

your spirals for scripture,

your cravings for commandments.

I was young enough to mistake that confidence

for divinity-

to bow my head not because you were sacred

but because I hadn’t yet learned

that godhood can be counterfeited

by any man who speaks loudly enough

while standing on his own ruin.

you were never a deity.

just a boy with a handful of matches

calling himself fire.

your mind was never a labyrinth,

only a cluttered room you refused to clean.

I wandered it for years,

thinking the mess meant complexity,

thinking the chaos meant genius,

when it was really just debris

you were too proud- or too frightened-

to sort through.

you carried your mind

like a crown made of theories,

convinced you were one revelation away

from rewriting the universe.

but stimulants made your thoughts louder,

not wiser.

chaos made your spirals feel cosmic,

not profound.

your conviction was the only thing

that ever mirrored Einstein-

and even that was borrowed,

a costume worn too long

by someone mistaking velocity

for direction.

and your voice-

god, you were so proud of it.

as if sound bent around you.

as if every syllable you shaped

proved some untouchable brilliance.

time dulls even the sharpest notes,

and chemicals do not care

how sacred you think your throat is.

I used to think it was magic;

now it sounds like someone

trying to remember a song

they can no longer reach.

the day pity replaced longing

was the day you died for me.

not dramatically-

quietly,

the way a candle gutters out

when the room brightens.

I didn’t kill the feeling.

I simply  stepped into the light

to see you clearly

and realized you were never more

than what I had to squint to love.

you always spoke like someone capable

of shattering worlds,

but the only thing you ever broke

was yourself-

again and again,

mistaking the sound of collapse 

for thunder.

I used to carry you like a prophecy,

a name I couldn’t quite out down.

but the cruelest ending

wasn’t the breaking,

or the distance,

or even the disillusion.

it was the moment  I realized

you no longer occupied ant room

in the architecture of my future.

no door left cracked,

no shadow on the threshold,

 no echo of possibility.

just absence-

clean, precise,

like a surgeons cut,

you were once a gravity

I mistook for destiny,

a force I thought I’d orbit forever.

but even planets slip their bindings

when they remember

they were born from fire,

not the things that tried

to contain them.

you’re not a ghost.

ghosts linger.

you’re not a scar.

scars teach.

you’re not even a memory worth keeping-

just an outdated instinct,

a reflex I forgot to unlearn

until my life grew too full

for you to fit anywhere inside it.

you didn’t lose me.

you never had me-

you has the wounded version of me

who mistook survival for devotion

and intensity for worth.

she’s gone now.

and all you’re left with

is the echo of a power

you imagined you ever held.

I didn’t walk away from you.

I simply climbed out of the life

where you looked large.

from here, you’re small enough

to step over

without even slowing down.

I didn’t lose faith

I gained distance.

and distance revealed everything.

You are not a chapter I revisit-

you are a footnote 

I outgrew

without noticing.

-Koii