Between Bruises & Blooms

You said
you would break me

and perhaps
that was the only promise
I should have believed.

Because love
was never gentle here.

It came wearing
a mask.

Carrying secrets.

Standing somewhere
between devotion
and destruction

until I could no longer tell
which one
was holding my throat.

I stopped trusting
my own reflection.

Stopped knowing
whether the monster
was real

or whether my mind
had simply learned
to make monsters
out of everything.

That is the cruelest way
to break someone—

not the bones.

Not the skin.

The certainty.

Make her question
what she saw.

What she remembers.

Who she loves.

Whether the hand
reaching toward her
means salvation

or another wound.

Until eventually

she cannot even trust
herself.

You said
you would break me.

Fine.

But broken things
have edges.

And sometimes

the woman
you shattered

comes back sharp enough
to cut you too.