I mistook
my capacity to love
for my obligation
to endure.
(pause)
Because in the beginning—
you were light.
Laughter came easy.
Affection didn’t require translation.
Love felt like a room
with the windows open
and nothing to hide.
You swept me off my feet
without trying—
and I believed,
not recklessly,
but honestly.
(beat)
The first year
was not a lie.
I need that said out loud.
There were real moments.
Real joy.
Real tenderness.
And that is why I stayed
when the ground shifted
beneath us.
(pause)
The cracks didn’t arrive loudly.
They whispered.
A tone change.
A withdrawal.
Defensiveness disguised as depth.
Triggers I couldn’t see
until I was already tripping over them.
(slower)
The man who once held me
began guarding himself
from shadows I didn’t cast.
And suddenly
I was apologizing
for storms I never started.
(beat)
I tried to love you back
to who you were
before the fractures surfaced.
I reinforced the walls
while you denied the blueprint.
I called it patience.
I called it commitment.
I didn’t call it what it was—
me holding a house together
while you refused to look
at the foundation.
(long breath)
You came to me leaking—
old wounds reopened,
patterns on repeat,
bleeding from places
I didn’t cause
but was expected to tend.
And I let you sit inside me
like a confession
you never intended to finish.
(pause)
I learned your triggers
before I learned my limits.
I learned how to soften my voice
before I learned how to protect my peace.
I learned how to regulate your nervous system
while mine stayed on high alert
just to keep the night calm.
(beat)
I was the place you came to bleed
because I stayed still enough
to let you.
Not because I was meant to.
Not because I was chosen.
But because I believed
love meant endurance.
(pause)
But listen—
I know the difference now
between compassion
and consent.
Between loving someone
and losing myself
to keep them regulated.
Between grace
and self-abandonment.
(slower)
I am not cruel for closing the door.
I am not cold for choosing quiet.
I am not wrong for refusing
to be your emotional triage
while you circle the same wounds
and call it growth.
You do not get to keep bleeding
into someone
who finally learned how to clot.
(beat)
I honor the love we had—
and I release the damage
that followed it.
Both can be true.
(pause)
I wish you healing—
the kind that doesn’t require
a witness.
The kind that doesn’t ask
someone else
to hold the pain for you.
But I will not stand here
open-armed
while you refuse the work
and call it connection.
(long pause)
I am no longer the place
you come to bleed.
I am the place
I stayed.
And that—
that is how I survived.
