Draining The Fishbowl Poem by cassidy Lovato

We grew up near the same water,
close enough to ripple each other's shores,
but never close enough
to learn how the other learned to swim.
You were older, already moving with the tide,
and I was still counting minnows in shallow places
my memory of you small,
but kind.

Time carried us apart
the way rivers always do.
Different bends.
Different storms.
Different depths.

When our paths crossed again,
it was always brief
a church doorway,
a borrowed camera,
a moment framed and returned.
You were good at holding lenses,
less practiced at holding people.

You swam forward.
I stayed back.
We called it friendship,
but it was really proximity pretending.

I asked you into something sacred once
not because I knew you well,
but because I believed in potential,
in good intentions,
in the version of people
they say they are becoming.

And for a while,
I watched you drift
learning new waters,
new truths,
new ways to breathe.
I cheered quietly from shore,
even when you forgot to look back.

Years passed.
My life grew heavy and full
children, marriage, roots.
Yours stayed nomadic,
circling the same stories,
the same undertow,
the same reflections of yourself
on every surface.

When I left the water we shared,
you called it concern.
But concern doesn't skim the surface
and call it knowing.
Concern asks questions.
Concern listens.
Concern notices birthdays,
names, seasons, growth.

What you offered was observation
a fisherman mistaking ripples
for the whole lake.

You watched shadows online
and decided you knew the depth of me.
You called it sadness.
You called it worry.
But you never once stepped in
to feel the temperature.

You spoke endlessly of your storms
and called me self-centered
for having a shoreline of my own.
You mistook boundaries for narcissism,
distance for betrayal,
privacy for deception.

You cleaned house,
net by net,
calling it integrity
while asking others to spy,
to circle,
to feed you scraps
of a story you refused to release.

And that's when I saw it clearly:

You don't fear losing people.
You fear them remembering you
accurately.

You curate connections
like exhibits
keep what reflects well,
discard what might speak honestly
when you leave the room.

You scroll endlessly through oceans
but never learn how to dive.
You mistake motion for progress.
Noise for truth.
Control for care.

I stayed quiet longer than I should have.
I let the water cloud.
I let your version of me
float unchecked.

But here's what you never asked
and never knew:

I am not what I post.
I am not what you assume.
I am not a side character
in your self-examination.

I am a whole damn sea
you never bothered to swim.

So I'm draining the fishbowl now
not in anger,
but in clarity.
I don't owe oxygen
to something that only survives
when I stay small.

You can keep your tides,
your echo chambers,
your careful distancing
disguised as morality.

I'm choosing deeper water
where connection is mutual,
where concern has hands,
where love asks
before it concludes.

I wish you calm seas.
Truly.
But I'm done mistaking
your reflection
for depth.