Between Bruises & Blooms

I have said it softly,
with patience
I no longer recognize
as my own.

I have said it through tears,
through exhaustion,
through the trembling hands
of a woman
who has spent too many years
explaining why
she deserves to breathe.

I have said it angry,
with words sharpened
against the bones
of every boundary
you have ever crossed.

And still,
you look at me
like I am speaking
a language
you have never heard.

I asked for space.

You heard abandonment.

I asked for silence.

You heard an invitation
to call again.

I told you
I was no longer yours.

And somehow,
you still found a way
to call me your wife.

Tell me,
how many times
must a woman bury
the same conversation
before a man stops
digging it back up?

How many apologies
must rot between us
before you understand
that sorry
is not a resurrection?

You cannot keep
dragging dead promises
from their graves
and expecting me
to breathe life
into them.

I am tired.

God,
I am so fucking tired.

Tired of explaining
that my silence
is not a punishment.

That my friendships
are not betrayals.

That my time
is not something
you are entitled
to claim.

I have watched my phone
light up like a warning
in the darkness,
your name appearing
again and again,
until the simple act
of not answering
felt like preparing
for another storm.

And when I finally
asked someone
who shares your blood
whether I had somehow
failed to make myself clear,

she told me
I hadn't.

What a strange
and heartbreaking relief,
to discover
I have not lost
my ability to speak.

Only the feeling
of being heard.

And now
I am left wondering
which truth
is uglier.

That you genuinely
cannot understand
the words
I have laid bleeding
at your feet,

or that you understand
every single one
and simply cannot accept
that they belong
to a woman
who no longer belongs
to you.

Because there is
a difference
between missing someone
and refusing
to release them.

There is a difference
between love
and the desperate need
to possess
whatever makes
your loneliness quieter.

And there is
a difference
between being
the father of my children
and being
the centre of my life.

You have mistaken
those things
for far too long.

I will not spend
the rest of my existence
translating my boundaries
into something
more comfortable
for you to hear.

I will not keep
making myself smaller
so your fear
can occupy
every corner
of my world.

My children deserve
a mother
who is present.

My friends deserve
a woman
who can answer
without guilt.

My family deserves
a daughter
who has time
to call home.

And I deserve
to sit in a quiet room
without feeling
like I have committed
some unforgivable sin
by choosing
my own company.

So perhaps
the question
was never
whether you understood.

Perhaps
the question
was how much
of myself
I was willing
to destroy
trying to make you.

And I finally
have an answer.

Nothing.

Not another night.
Not another hour.
Not another piece
of the woman
I have fought
so fucking hard
to become.

You can misunderstand
my silence.

You can call it cruel.

You can tell yourself
whatever story
makes my absence
easier to swallow.

But I will not
keep tearing open
my own wounds
to prove
that I am bleeding.

I was never
speaking in riddles.

I was speaking
in boundaries.

And this time,
whether you understand
them or not,

I intend
to keep them.