We are the ones who lower our voices
before anyone asks.
We fold our wants into neat napkins,
set them beside plates that were never ours.
Kindness is a door left unlatched
not because we are foolish,
but because we believe the night will knock
before it enters.
I loved like a lighthouse loves fog:
steadily,
mistaking closeness for salvation,
calling ships that only wanted the rocks.
You wore charm like borrowed perfume:
sweet, temporary, evaporating
the moment I reached for permanence.
I mistook your absence for mystery.
Somewhere between apologies and patience,
I shrank.
I learned how to translate neglect
into a language that sounded like hope.
They say we accept the love we think we deserve;
mine arrived chipped,
wrapped in newspaper promises,
and I thanked it for not cutting too deep.
Now silence sits beside me,
heavy as unwashed rain.
Giving up isn’t loud,
it’s the quiet decision to stop setting the table
for ghosts.
I am unlearning the geometry of less.
Re-teaching my heart its original scale.
If love comes again,
it will have to speak clearly
no riddles,
no vanishing acts,
no bruised constellations posing as fate.
Because I am done mistaking hunger
for devotion,
and I will no longer call the wrong hands
home.
Feb 6
Feb 6, 2026 at 6:00 PM UTC
We are the ones who lower our voices
before anyone asks.
We fold our wants into neat napkins,
set them beside plates that were never ours.
Kindness is a door left unlatched
not because we are foolish,
but because we believe the night will knock
before it enters.
I loved like a lighthouse loves fog:
steadily,
mistaking closeness for salvation,
calling ships that only wanted the rocks.
You wore charm like borrowed perfume:
sweet, temporary, evaporating
the moment I reached for permanence.
I mistook your absence for mystery.
Somewhere between apologies and patience,
I shrank.
I learned how to translate neglect
into a language that sounded like hope.
They say we accept the love we think we deserve;
mine arrived chipped,
wrapped in newspaper promises,
and I thanked it for not cutting too deep.
Now silence sits beside me,
heavy as unwashed rain.
Giving up isn’t loud,
it’s the quiet decision to stop setting the table
for ghosts.
I am unlearning the geometry of less.
Re-teaching my heart its original scale.
If love comes again,
it will have to speak clearly
no riddles,
no vanishing acts,
no bruised constellations posing as fate.
Because I am done mistaking hunger
for devotion,
and I will no longer call the wrong hands
home.
Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?
We accept the love we think we deserve.
