Between Bruises & Blooms

You can’t love me
the way
I want to be loved.

There.

I said it
without blaming you.

Without making myself
smaller
so the sentence
would fit
inside your hands.

I wanted softness
that did not disappear
when things got hard.

I wanted honesty
before discovery.

I wanted affection
that did not have
to be earned
by being easy.

I wanted
to be considered
even when
I was not in the room.

You gave me
what you had.

Maybe that
was everything.

But everything
someone has
can still be
less than
what you need.

That truth
used to feel cruel.

Now it feels
like mercy.

Because love
is not only
about whether
someone means it.

Sometimes
it is about shape.

And ours
kept cutting
into places
I was trying
to heal.

So I will not
call you evil.

I will not
call myself
too much.

I will simply say—

this is not
the shape
I asked for.

And leave room
for a love
that is.