They Promised Me A Garden

They said it like scripture, soft and rehearsed.
"Things will grow if you just believe. Just stay. Just wait."

So I did. I stayed. I bled into the dirt. I broke skin for something that never sprouted.
The sun never came.
And the soil?
The soil was already full—
of bones.
Of memories with teeth.
Of things I was never meant to uncover, but did anyway.

They didn’t plant flowers. They planted ghosts.
Carefully.
Aesthetic.
Like trauma could be arranged in rows and called design.

They built a graveyard and named it “opportunity.”
Hung fairy lights over decay and dared to call it “safe.”
And I—I knelt like a fool, watering phantoms, thinking it was love. 

Thinking it was growth.
It was rot. Ritualized. Systematic.

Here’s the truth no one wants to speak out loud:
The worst betrayals don’t scream.
They whisper.
They wear your tone, echo your values, mirror your hopes until you’re too far in to crawl back.
It wasn't an accident.
They knew this place was hollow.

They handed me a shovel and watched me dig my own disbelief.
Not a partner. Just an audience.
They didn’t need help.
They needed someone to keep the performance going.
To polish the stones.
To dress the wounds like it was part of the plan.

And I—I stayed too long.
Long enough for my spine to bend.
Long enough to wonder if the emptiness was my fault.

But it wasn't.

I see it now.
This wasn’t a garden.
It was a stage for erasure.
An execution with roses at the foot of the bed.
A harvest of ghosts fed by the hope they milked from me.

I walked out barefoot.
Ripped. Raw. Real.

I don’t need apologies.
I don’t need closure.

I want everyone to see what you buried.

No flowers.
No growth.
Just ghosts.
And the echo of a promise you never meant to keep.