She Used to Be Mine

It starts with that low, aching hum of the electric piano, like grief walking into the room before you’re ready to name it. “I can’t make you love me if you don’t.” Just ten words, but they land like thunder in my chest. I’m not crying yet. I’m holding a cup of tea like it might anchor me, but it doesn’t, it just gives my hands something to do while my heart quietly splits. My throat burns like I swallowed a decade’s worth of unsaid things. The room is dark, but music knows how to find me anyway. It always does.

This song never begged. That’s why it wrecks me. It doesn’t plead or push. It just tells the truth: that no matter how much you give, how long you stay, how many times you shrink yourself into something digestible… you cannot make someone meet you where you are if they are determined to stay where it feels safe. I hear myself in every note. In every silence between the lines. The kind of silence I lived in for years, waiting for a touch that meant something, for eyes that saw past the version of me I built just to keep the peace.

I thought I was building a life. But I was just building walls inside myself. Beautiful walls, sure - lined with photos and curated joy. Moments that looked like happiness and sometimes were. But underneath it all, I was slowly disappearing. “You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t.” No, you can’t.

“She’s imperfect, but she tries…” And there it is - She Used to Be Mine. This one doesn’t creep in, it cuts clean. Doesn’t ask questions. It remembers. That version of me who used to sing while making breakfast. Who drove the long way home just for the view. Who painted in the middle of the night because her feelings had nowhere else to go. She visits me in this song like a ghost with soft hands. I don’t know when I stopped letting her lead. I just know I did. And now, I miss her like a limb I forgot I lost.

I wasn’t supposed to disappear inside a love that called itself home. I wasn’t supposed to be the one who dimmed. And yet, here I am. Holding the pieces. Looking at the door. Knowing I have to walk through it. Knowing he might never understand that I’m not leaving because I don’t love him. I’m leaving because somewhere along the way, I forgot how to love myself.

And still… there is no anger here. No fists, no shouting, no slammed doors. Just a stillness that feels like grief braided with grace. The ache is quiet. But it is everywhere.

I close my eyes. Let that truth press against my chest - warm, devastating. That girl I used to be, she didn’t need much. Just to be seen. And I’m trying. I’m trying to see her again. Even if it’s just me, tonight, sitting in the dark, unraveling like a ribbon left out in the wind.

Train Song slips in next. Vashti’s voice brushes against my ribs like a ghost. Her words belong to the version of me who danced under streetlights, who laughed too loud, who didn’t filter herself to be easier to love. I wonder where she went. I wonder if she’s still waiting for me to choose her.

Then comes The Moon Song. The one I wasn’t ready for. “I went for a walk under the moon,” and I did too - not with my feet, but with my whole spirit. I wandered into the quiet space between who I was and who I’m becoming. I asked the night for peace, not in the world, but in my chest, where everything has felt like thunder.

She sings of fear, of softness swallowed by shame, and I feel seen - fully, nakedly. Not by another person, but by the voice inside me I used to trust. The one I silenced to make others comfortable. When she sings “Child, be unafraid to shine,” something in me splits open. Because I have spent years hiding behind the needs of others, afraid my light would either blind them or not be enough.

I sip my tea, finally. It tastes like something small and good. Like surviving the hour.

Killing Me Softly comes next, and I let it. Let it hum through the ache I’ve been too proud to name. “Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words...” and I feel exposed, but not undone. It doesn’t destroy. It reveals. It peels back the layers I’ve worn to be chosen, to be soft enough, small enough, quiet enough. And yes, it hurts - but gently. Like someone sitting beside you in the dark, not to fix it. Just to stay.

You don’t save me. You don’t need to. You just sit beside me and say,I see you. I’ve been here too.

And somehow, that’s enough.