I called you Jane of all trades,
as if it were just a clever phrase—
as if your hands hadn’t bled learning
every art that helped you stay alive.
But I knew

You didn’t chase mastery
You chased meaning
You picked up crafts
when sleep left you
learned to dance
because silence hurt too much
took up swimming
as if you could swim your troubles
from this weir of waste.
You were always trying—
not to be the best
but to be whole.

And God, how fiercely you fought.
With laughter that sounded like armor,
and eyes that carried battles
no one else dared name.
You were relentless,
brave beyond words,
beautiful in a way that had nothing
to do with what you looked like
and everything to do
with how you survived.

She battled demons
no one else could see
The kind that none believed to be true
Still she fought despite scars—
stitched both in mind and heart
inside the pauses between her own heartbeats
When she gave her heart
she didn’t hand it over in pieces
She poured. She flooded
Like a tulip bursting through frost
soft, bold, unafraid of breaking

You gave your soul in soft-spoken glances,
in texts at 2 a.m
always checking in if I'm okay
in remembering the little things
I never even knew I said.
And I—
I was the lucky one once.

We’re not us anymore.
And maybe we never fully were.
But I carry you, still—
in the quiet ways you changed me.
And I still love you.
Not the way I did then,
but deeper.
Quieter.
In the way a gardener still visits
the soil where a tulip once bloomed—
knowing it will return each spring,
just not for him.

Your name speaks for itself—
You can do everything
Every survival you triumph through
Despite all that your walls did break
But I knew the truth
Loving me was the only thing you didn't master
You couldn't pull through

And if this poem
finds its way to you someday—
just know:
You were never too much.
You were everything.
And loving you
was the closest I ever came
to loving something whole.


Erennwrites