A Muse I Never Had To Survive

—for the man I once chose to build with

I didn’t just feel safe with him.
I felt activated.

He wasn’t a pedestal I climbed to feel worthy.
He was a blueprint I studied to become sharper.

I didn’t admire him like a little girl looking up at a hero.
I admired him the way one sovereign mind recognizes another.
Quietly. Clearly. Without illusion.

That kind of admiration didn’t shrink me.
It didn’t soften me into submission.
It stretched me. It expanded me.

I never lost myself in him.
I found myself around him—
through the pace he kept,
through the way he moved through life with intention,
through the way he kept building.

Not for me. Not to impress.
But because that’s who he was.

I didn’t become who I am today in spite of him.
I became her alongside him.
Not from needing him.
But from watching him.
Learning. Matching frequency. Choosing growth.

He didn’t tame my fire.
He calibrated it.

He didn’t force me to evolve.
He just kept going.
And I kept up.

That’s why the grief doesn’t rot.
It doesn’t fester.
It doesn’t bleed.

It’s clean.

He didn’t leave wounds.
He left traces.

Rituals. Echoes.
A standard I still feel in my bones.

It was never codependence.
It was co-evolution.