No tears for ghosts of me

Expired relationships grieve me, their ghosts linger, but it's not them I miss. It's the selves I built inside those spaces, shadows shaped by their gaze. I never saw them, only the version of me they mirrored back. I crafted my reflection, and in that crafting, lost sight of who they became. What did I miss? I clung to those versions of myself as if they were threads holding me together, but they were illusions, fabrications. This is my confession—for seeing only my own image in them, not the truth of who they were. But I will no longer mourn these expired selves. No more ghosts. No more wounds.