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Oct 4 · 19
It Hurts
It's Hard to Define Love

It's hard to define what love is
When you have to impress your family,
Impress your friends,
Conform to social standards,
To what others believe,
To what you were taught to believe.

Love is hard to define,
Yet love is love—
No word can capture its essence,
No way to describe the feeling.
Like a tattoo, it's there, permanent,
But elusive, beyond the grasp of words.

You fall deeply in love,
But you can't be with that person.
Not because of you,
But because of social norms,
Beliefs passed down,
Teachings rooted deep in the past.

You love them, but you're separated—
By culture,
By expectations,
By the family's unspoken rules.
It hurts—
A love that can't be shared
Because they say it's wrong.

One culture says,
A man cannot marry a woman with kids.
Three kids, four kids—
It doesn’t matter where they came from.
Love becomes a casualty,
A victim of tradition.
You loved, you gave, but now you’re told,
You're unworthy—
It hurts.

You could have had those children
From pain, from a broken dream,
From a marriage you thought would last forever.
And yet,
You're denied love because of someone else's belief,
Because of rules you never asked for.

It's like you’re water—
And he's fire.
And when you come together,
You put out the flame.
So he searches for someone new,
But he can't find the love you gave him.
Still, you're torn apart—
By culture,
By belief,
By what they say.

And it hurts—
Because he could marry you,
But he won’t.
Because your family says no,
Because his family says no,
Because church says no,
Because society says no.
It's hard,
It's painful.

A woman with no children
Can marry a man with seven.
But you?
You cannot.
You’re cast aside,
A wound no one can heal.


---

It's okay for him to fall
Once, twice, ten times,
Twenty times—it's okay.
He can fall as many times as he likes.
But you?
You fall once,
And suddenly, you are forgotten.
They turn their backs on you.

They don’t remember you.
They don’t see you.
They don’t care.
They judge you.
They say, “She’s fallen,
She’s tasted the sin,
Now, she’s unclean.”

You’re not the woman they knew—
Because you made a mistake.
By being forced,
By trusting the wrong promise,
By carrying children born of pain,
You are labeled forever.

You—
The one who was *****.
You—
The one who loved and lost.
You—
The one with no husband, no worth.
Your heart aches for someone
You can never have,
Because society says, “No.”

And while the world preaches—
“Love yourself, believe in yourself,
You are strong, you are enough”—
Behind your back, they whisper:
“Look at her.
Look at the one with the broken life.
The one who couldn’t keep her marriage.
The one with kids she didn’t plan.
Look at her.”

It’s hypocrisy—
And it stings.

You fall,
Over and over,
For the same man you can never have.
No one catches you.
No one lifts you up.

You’re left to face the pain alone.

Even God, they say, with all His power,
Cannot change this—
Because of what we’ve been told,
What we’ve been taught,
What the church and society demand,
Because he’s royal,
Because he’s a man.

And it hurts.
If I could, I'd open my heart wide,
Let you find your way to my soul,
But I’m scared—you might be just like the rest,

The ones I let in, only to be burned.

Now I sit with confusion, looping thoughts,
Why won’t you let me in?
But I’m scared too.

I’m afraid of every mistake I’ve made,
The decisions that led me here,
The steps that echo behind me,
The fire blazing before me.

Your honesty could be my salvation,
But what are you so afraid of?

You feel like a distraction,
Igniting a fire, then locking me in,
Leaving me to burn alone.

Or am I your distraction,
A flame you kindle when it suits you,
Only to shut me away when you’re done?

No one has ever made me this vulnerable,
No one has ever been my weakness like you.

I try to run, but like a net, you catch me— A swimmer drowning in your tide.
Is it a coincidence,
Or is this by design?

No one has ever pushed me down the stairs,
Only to catch me just before I break—
Like you do.

— The End —