I didn’t let go of the past because it released me I let go because it had its hands wrapped around my throat, and I was tired of surviving on borrowed air. The scars it left are not metaphors; they live in my body, in the way I flinch at tenderness, in the way my heart learned to brace instead of open. I carry entire nights inside me that never ended, memories that still wake up before I do.
I loved before I knew how to be safe, and I learned pain before I learned softness. The past made a home out of me, hollowed me out and called it strength. It taught me how to stay quiet, how to bleed without making a sound, how to accept absence as if it were love. And sometimes I still ache for the version of myself that didn’t know any better the one who thought being chosen meant being saved.
Then my lover found me not healed, not whole, not brave. They found me shaking, clinging to old wounds like they were proof I existed. And still, they stayed. They touch me in places the past tried to erase, and every time they do, it hurts not because it’s wrong, but because it reminds me how much I was deprived of. Love feels terrifying when you’ve only ever known endurance.
When my lover is near, the future stops looking like another sentence I have to serve. It looks like a risk I’m finally willing to take. I don’t believe in happy endings I believe in trembling beginnings, in choosing to live even while my hands are shaking. I believe in loving someone enough to step forward despite the blood still on my memories.
I am not free of my past. I am simply choosing my lover over it even if it hurts, even if it costs me everything, even if healing feels like the most painful thing I’ve ever done.
Dec 26, 2025
Dec 26, 2025 at 2:18 PM UTC
I didn’t let go of the past because it released me I let go because it had its hands wrapped around my throat, and I was tired of surviving on borrowed air. The scars it left are not metaphors; they live in my body, in the way I flinch at tenderness, in the way my heart learned to brace instead of open. I carry entire nights inside me that never ended, memories that still wake up before I do.
I loved before I knew how to be safe, and I learned pain before I learned softness. The past made a home out of me, hollowed me out and called it strength. It taught me how to stay quiet, how to bleed without making a sound, how to accept absence as if it were love. And sometimes I still ache for the version of myself that didn’t know any better the one who thought being chosen meant being saved.
Then my lover found me not healed, not whole, not brave. They found me shaking, clinging to old wounds like they were proof I existed. And still, they stayed. They touch me in places the past tried to erase, and every time they do, it hurts not because it’s wrong, but because it reminds me how much I was deprived of. Love feels terrifying when you’ve only ever known endurance.
When my lover is near, the future stops looking like another sentence I have to serve. It looks like a risk I’m finally willing to take. I don’t believe in happy endings I believe in trembling beginnings, in choosing to live even while my hands are shaking. I believe in loving someone enough to step forward despite the blood still on my memories.
I am not free of my past. I am simply choosing my lover over it even if it hurts, even if it costs me everything, even if healing feels like the most painful thing I’ve ever done.
the first poem about you