The Ultimatum

He looked between us once more and said,
“It’s either her or me.”

And just like that,
the room stopped breathing.

The clock on the wall
held its second hand in suspense,
as if even time didn’t dare
to move too loudly.

I stood there—
in the uncomfortable middle
of a sentence I never asked to be part of,
while love stared at war
through the tired eyes of a man
who couldn’t hold
what he never learned to carry.

You want an answer.
You want it now.
You want me to cut cleanly,
choose blood or breath,
history or hope,
peace or presence.

You stand with your arms folded
like a border guard
checking papers at an emotional checkpoint,
as if my heart could be stamped,
as if my life must be smuggled
through the tunnel of your discomfort.

And she—
she doesn’t speak.
She doesn’t have to.
Her silence
is a cathedral of everything unspoken
between women who were told
they are rivals
simply because they both
occupy space in the life
of a man who can’t make space
for both.

You say her name
like it’s poison.
You say it as if she is a threat
instead of a presence.
But she is not the storm.
She is the sky I used to write poems in.
She is the friend
who held my secrets
long before you asked to hold my hand.

She was there
when I didn’t know who I was yet.
When I still flinched
at the sound of my own voice.
She was there—
laughing in the kitchen,
crying beside me on bathroom floors,
screaming songs with the windows down
on highways to nowhere.
She was there
before the romance,
before the roses,
before the rules.

You looked at her
and saw competition.
I looked at her
and saw sisterhood.

And still,
you say,
“It’s either her or me.”

As if love
were a zero-sum game.
As if affection
were pie,
and she’s taken the slice
you wanted for yourself.

You mistake boundaries
for betrayal.
You confuse emotional intimacy
with infidelity.
You see her presence
as an erosion
of your power
instead of the weaving of a tapestry
that holds me whole.

I am tired
of shrinking my life
to make space for a man’s ego.
Tired
of being told that to love one
I must exile the other.

You want me
to amputate my past
to secure your future.
But what kind of love
asks for blood?

What kind of love
looks at a woman and says,
“You must be mine
alone.”

No.
You don’t want love.
You want possession.
You want a heart
with no previous addresses.
You want to enter
as if no one else
ever lit candles
in this room before you.

But I remember
who helped me build this house.
Who painted the walls
when all I had was grey.
Who stayed
when I wanted to disappear.

You didn’t arrive
to a blank canvas.
You arrived
to a mural already in motion.
And she—
she is part of the color.

So when you say,
“It’s either her or me,”
what you really say is:
“Choose between the roots of who you are
and the possibility of who we might become.”

You think this is strength.
You think this is clarity.
But it is neither.

It is fear
wearing a mask called ultimatum.

I am not a pendulum
for your uncertainty to swing.
I am not a doll
to be placed in the arms of approval.

I am a woman
with a history,
a voice,
a network of souls
woven into the marrow of me.
I do not sever
just because you are threatened
by what you don’t understand.

You say you love me,
but love does not divide.
Love does not demand
a smaller version
of the person it claims to cherish.

If you cannot hold me
with all my stories,
then you do not deserve
to be in my next chapter.

So I inhale—
deep and long,
filling my lungs
with the oxygen of my own worth.

I look at you,
at your furrowed brow,
your clenched jaw,
your ultimatum
dangling in the air
like a guillotine.

And I answer—

“Then go.”

Because if loving her
means losing you,
then you were never really mine.

And if being mine
means cutting out
the people who watered me
through drought,
then I choose the rain
over your desert.

If it’s either her or you—
I choose
me.

#Poetry #TheUltimatum #EmpoweredChoice #SisterhoodOverPossession #UnapologeticVoice #LoveWithoutConditions #PoetryOfTheSoul #FemaleFriendshipMatters #ChooseYourself