Verse I
I loved you like the tide loves the shore
Never asking if it stayed
I learned your breathing in the dark
I learned your silence the same way
You held me like a temporary thing
Like I was meant to fade
But I don’t break just because
You didn’t know how to stay
Pre-Chorus
I kept giving you pieces of me
Hoping you’d see the whole
But love doesn’t grow in hands
That don’t know how to hold
Chorus
You didn’t ruin me
You revealed me
You showed me what I deserve
I thought losing you would empty me
But I found my worth in the hurt
I don’t hate the way it ended
I don’t drown in what it was
Some love is only meant
To teach you how to love yourself enough
Verse II
I waited in rooms where you weren’t present
Even when you were there
I mistook longing for connection
And patience for repair
I tried to be smaller, quieter, easier
So you wouldn’t pull away
But love that asks you to disappear
Isn’t love — it’s delay
Pre-Chorus II
I don’t regret the way I loved you
I just outgrew the cost
Some people are lessons
Not losses
Chorus
You didn’t ruin me
You revealed me
You showed me what I deserve
I thought losing you would empty me
But I found my worth in the hurt
I don’t curse the nights I cried
Or the prayers I couldn’t trust
Some love is only meant
To teach you how to love yourself enough
Bridge (soft, intimate, Vessel-style)
I was never too much
I was just misplaced
I was speaking devotion
To someone fluent in escape
And I don’t need you
To validate the way I feel
I survived the breaking
Now I choose what’s real
Final Chorus (swells, emotional release)
You didn’t ruin me
You revealed me
I see myself clearer now
I let you go without hatred
And I’m still standing in the sound
I don’t carry what you couldn’t hold
I don’t beg for what you lost
If loving you led me back to me
Then the pain was worth the cost
Outro
I step out of the water
Still dripping, still warm
What didn’t choose me
Didn’t get to