The Leaving

I packed the silence first

the way it screamed

between your words,

the look you gave me

that made my soul retreat

while my body stayed.

Thirteen years.

Thirteen winters with no thaw,

summers where I learned

to survive in drought.

And still, I watered the dead garden with hope.

You hurt me in ways

I never learned to name

until the bruises on my soul

grew roots in my spirit.

You didn’t need violence

just silence sharp enough

to slice through my sense of self.

It wasn’t always bruises

but your love was a cage

that taught me to fear my own voice.

I should hate you.

And maybe I do,

in the corners of my rage,

in the flashbacks

that steal sleep from my eyes.

But love

love is a stubborn ghost.

It clings,

even as try to cross the threshold

I didn’t leave

because I stopped loving you.

I left because I finally started loving me.

And it aches

Fuck, it hurts

like stealing pieces of my soul,

like burying the part of me

that still waits for the

version of you that never arrived.

But I go.

With trembling hands

and pieces of myself

I’m still gathering.

I go.

I have to choose to live.