Not Your Oracle

Priestess of Delphi, John Collier, 1891

John Collier, 1891

I’m tired

of being an emotional tampon

for unwhole men,

sponging up pieces they left behind,

patching their cracks with my patience,

distracting myself from my own edges.

I’m not your oracle.

Not your mom.

Not your counselor.

Not your bandaid.

Not your plaything.

I do not exist to anticipate your moods,

to translate your silences,

to fill the gaps you refuse to face.

I am mine.

I hold my own pieces,

every shard and curve,

every flame and shadow.

I am not a puzzle for you to solve,

not a mirror for your reflection,

not a project waiting for completion.

I am gravity.

I am chaos.

I am constellations you’ll never map.

I am whole,

even when you are not.

And I will not dilute myself

to make your fractures more comfortable.

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This piece came from a pattern I couldn’t ignore. Being leaned on but not truly seen. The phrase “emotional tampon” was borrowed from someone who once apologized to me using those exact words, and it stayed with me. What started as one moment became a pattern, and eventually, a boundary. It came to represent something larger. The quiet exhaustion of being needed but not chosen.