I should be better.  

I should be the man who reaches for your hand without hesitation,  
who speaks in soft tones and knows the right words,  
who doesn’t flinch when love is placed before him  
like a gift he has never deserved.  

But I am not.  

I am sharp edges and broken glass,  
a locked door with no key,  
a storm that does not know how to do anything  
but destroy what it touches.  

I love you more than life,  
but my love comes out wrong.  
It comes out in silence when you need words,  
in words when you need silence,  
in distance when you need closeness,  
in fire when you need warmth.  

I don’t know how to be gentle.  
I don’t know how to hold something precious  
without cracking it in my hands.  

You tell me I am cruel.  
That I make you feel small.  
That loving me is a wound that never quite heals.  

I want to say I don’t mean it,  
but what does that matter?  
A blade doesn’t have to mean to cut  
to make you bleed.  

And you are bleeding.  

Because of me.  

Because I don’t know how to let myself be loved  
without turning it into something ugly.  
Because I don’t know how to take your kindness  
without twisting it into something sharp  
and throwing it back at you.  

Because I am trying to ruin this before you realize  
I am already ruined.  

And yet—  
I want you to stay.  

I want you to choose me  
even as I make you hate me.  
I want you to love me  
even as I give you nothing to hold onto.  

I want you to see through the wreckage  
and find something worth saving.  

But I know better.  

I know you will leave.  
I know I will let you.  
I know I will watch you walk away  
and say nothing,  
do nothing,  
pretend it does not split me open from the inside.  

And when they ask me what happened,  
I will say—  

"I loved her."

And they will not understand  
why that was never enough.