“You’ll understand the need one day.”
She wondered if that day would come—
when her skin cracked like paper-mâché.
She kissed him,
expecting fireworks her mother once described.
She was met with darkness and discomfort.

Your lips claimed connection,
but her heart whispered betrayal.
You held her hands, damp with want,
and she clung to you,
as if tomorrow might vanish in the haze of your hunger.
Your kisses were curses.
Your moans, sharp and grating, like nails on a chalkboard.

You always wanted more.
She wanted less.
But she knew—knew that if she said so,
your love might slip through her fingers.
So she swallowed her words,
let them sink beneath the weight of your doubt.
Her stomach churned at the thought of surrendering further,
but she feared what silence might mean.

She thought this was love’s price.
It felt like punishment,
a debt she owed for not being what you needed.
A cruel vengeance
for the love you hoped would reshape her.

Your need was relentless,
a siren’s call echoing through her fragile soul.
She tried to answer,
to meet the demands of a love she didn’t understand.
But no matter how much she gave,
there was always something more to prove.

She saw the way your gaze flickered—
whenever a boy made her laugh too freely,
whenever she held a girl in a fleeting embrace.
You feared she could slip away in any direction,
as if her love had no center.
She feared it too—
feared that if she stepped too close,
if she let herself love fully,
you’d see the truth and call it betrayal.
So she learned to quiet herself,
to keep her heart caged behind careful distance,
to let her silence be the currency of survival.

Her love for all was buried beneath layers of tolerance.
Your unease hung heavy in the air,
a suffocating reminder
that even monsters must learn to breathe in secret.

Now you’re gone.
And she is free.

Free to let the monster breathe,
her truth exhaled.
Yet freedom still walks on glass,
the world sharpens its claws,
a family poised to cast stones,
a society waiting to tear her apart.

No longer chained by the need for proof,
she holds her truth like a flame—
fragile and bright.