biting my tongue to swallow my pride

do i miss you?

or the familiarity

of being used?

you did it so kindly it felt like love.

i’ve scoured pages,

read many artists descriptions,

and i don’t think love

makes you question yourself like this.

i thought for so long i wasn’t enough.

you told me you loved me though.

i saw it in your eyes

but couldn’t see behind them.

it's hard to heal wounds

you don't have tools

to mend.

i suspect you loved me for the wrong reasons.

you told me i was so beautiful,

so kind,

so funny,

so strong.

you compared me to your idols,

i never wanted to be an example.

lamentably,

part of being feminine

is living your life in comparison.

you liked me because i reminded you

of things you liked in other people.

you loved them,

but you couldn’t love the truth.

as soon as i grew tired,

vulnerable,

i no longer reminded you of them.

i had told you that it wasn’t wise

to assume you knew me,

this only made you want to know me more.

this reassured me briefly,

but then,

when I let little,

long kept secret,

brittle,

pieces of me

become clear,

just as i'd feared,

you realized.

that’s when i stopped seeing it in your eyes.

i knew what was behind them,

and that the only way

i could get that look back

was to stop showing you

the parts too worn out to glow

but i began to despise

what that left me able to show.

i felt like i was locking myself away.

i would spend hours in the kitchen

cooking the best meal i could,

artistically rendering a meatloaf

to look like a filet mignon,

a delicate deception,

i made sure you got the best one.

i fed you misconceptions

hoping to satiate

a hunger for affection.

following recipes is easier when you have the conventional ingredients.

you rarely saw all the spills,

or the pile of utilized utensils,

or if you did,

you only wanted to scour,

in a hurry to help,

but caring shouldn’t be a chore.

because the problem wasn’t the mess,

the problem was

you couldn’t neglect it

so neither could i.

i’ve never cared much about

the deadline of things,

as long as they get done someday.

in those moments it was a priority

to recover,

to sit a room away

from the chaos and clutter.

to rest my head on your chest,

to decompress,

to save my energy,

to digest.

to bask in the glow of the tv,

to bathe in the warmth of love.

i didn't show my work but i did the math.

even if you count the hours we slept,

so soundly side by side,

i only spent a tiny fraction

of my little life with you.

there was so much time alone

that i could fill with action.

i am lying to myself now.

i didn’t keep things tidy most days,

when my home was lonely.

i did make certain it seemed that way

for the next time you'd see,

because it was important to you

so it became important to me.

i wish that worked in converse.

maybe sometimes it does,

but it’s easier to convince yourself

to care for the sake of someone else

than it is to ask someone

not to care

for yours.

it is much easier to love

than to be loved.

even the love of your life

will only truly love

what they can comprehend

about how you live.

it’s very difficult

to empathize with

anyone in the habit

of only ever exposing

what suits their own palate.

i will not love you for your freshly pressed shirt.

i will not love you for the jokes you've rehearsed.

i will not love you for a trite title or your diligence.

i will not love you for gifts, though so fondly given.

i will love my minds manic depiction

of you hurriedly learning how to iron,

conjuring pictures of you laying linens,

laboring over options to land on the safest bet.

i will love you for the spright sentimentality

of you stumbling through a sentence,

for the endless, exuberant utterances

that turn frustration into sniggers,

for an instinctive simplicity in laughing together.

i will love you for unrelenting, unadulterated good intentions,

for the perpetual purity of your prideful passion,

for the future you dream up when you rest.

i will love you for granting me permission to be,

peering past my mask to perceive the me I hide beneath,

for the empty expanse encased by your presence,

for giving me the gift of the present

being the only time I treasure.

i will love you for your fear

of failing first impressions.

i will be loved for the courage

in my concessional confessions.