The ant.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, an ant fell in love with a fly. The ant tried everything to fly alongside her. It threw itself off cliffs, leapt blindly into the air, and built wings out of broken leaves and stubborn hope. Nothing worked.

The fly saw it all. She saw the effort, the falls, the quiet determination. One day, she came closer and tried to teach the ant how to fly. It wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen overnight, but slowly, something changed. The ant grew wings. Real ones. And for a while, they flew together, making up for all the time that had been lost.

But time has a way of exposing distance. Flying next to the fly meant always being slightly behind, always adjusting, always proving something. The sky was open, but it was never equal. And one day, the ant understood that love shouldn’t feel like catching breath all the time.

So it turned away and kept flying.

The ant had become independent. It had learned how to fly. And now, it could do so on its own.

I’m telling you this because you are the fly, and I was the ant. I bent myself trying to reach you. I reshaped my limits, learned new languages, swallowed my own gravity just to stay close. You didn’t ask me to do any of it. That’s what makes this harder to admit. You were never cruel. You were simply unreachable.

Loving you didn’t break me. It stripped me. It left me without excuses.

It forced me to grow wings I should have grown for myself long before you ever existed.

And here’s the part that still hurts to say out loud.

I didn’t stop loving you because I wanted to. I stopped because I finally learned how not to disappear in the process.

I don’t need you now.

I don’t need your height, your pace, or your sky.

What I took from you was never you.

It was the ability to fly alone.

And I’m still flying.