I Was Never the Wound

I learned young that love could come with a price,

with hands that weren’t gentle and words that cut like knives.

I knew what it meant to be controlled, to be scared,

to have my trust taken and nobody care.

Sometimes it was silence, sometimes screaming at night,

sometimes being touched when I didn’t say it was right.

Sometimes it was starving for affection and praise,

being made to feel worthless, then blamed for the pain.

So I stopped knowing where my body ended and theirs began,

stopped believing “no” was something I’d ever get to demand.

I let people use me ’cause being used felt better than alone,

gave everybody pieces of me just so somebody would stay home.

Now my memories spin like a room with no floor,

every version of me still standing behind that door.

I spent years surviving what I thought I deserved,

until I realized I was never the one who deserved the hurt.

I’m spinning, spinning,

trying not to disappear,

learning love shouldn’t feel like

walking on broken glass in fear.

I’m spinning, spinning,

but I’m finally coming back to me.

Then you held all my broken pieces

without asking me to bleed.

You showed me I could have boundaries,

I could leave, I could say no—

and love could stay beside me

without controlling where I go.

I still carry the little girl who thought it was her fault,

who thought if she behaved better, maybe pain would stop.

She learned to overgive, overlove, overstay,

because abandonment terrified her more than being betrayed.

And I hate that sometimes kindness still makes me suspicious,

that peace feels unfamiliar, that healthy love feels different.

But you never used my past to hold me down,

never made me earn your love, never made me feel small.

So I’m taking back my body,

taking back my voice,

learning I can love somebody

without sacrificing my choice.

They taught me I was something

people could break and throw away—

but I’m writing something different

with every breath I take.

I’m spinning, spinning,

but the room don’t own me now.

The past can scream behind me,

I don’t have to turn around.

I’m spinning, spinning,

and somehow I’m still here.

You loved me through the darkness

until I learned to love me through the fear.

I was abandoned.

I was hurt.

I was used.

But I am not what they did.

And maybe that’s the first time

I’ve ever truly believed it.