Somehow

Some nights,

I lie still beside you

and listen to the way your breathing soothes

the dark—

like you're stitching the torn places in me

without ever lifting a hand.

And I wonder

what miracle keeps you here.

Some days,

the anxiety creeps in like a draft

through an old window with a worn sill—

whispering that one morning

you'll wake up, rub the sleep from your eyes,

and realize I am less

than the man you imagined,

less than the love you deserve,

less than enough.

Because I know myself

the way an old man knows the wounds that never

fully healed—

the tender places,

the edges still splintered,

the spots he shields

even from the people he trusts.

I've carried a long history of being overlooked—

the friend on the fringe,

the afterthought,

the almost-good-enough.

Sometimes I brace for revelation

to hit.

I smile with dread buried in my brow and gut

for the day you

open your eyes and

finally see what I see—

the less-than,

the not-quite,

the man always afraid of being rejected

or replaced.

It's a fear that clings like dust to glass,

even when I know better.

Somehow, you look at me.

You see me.

And everything quiets.

There's a way you hold my gaze

like you're reading a map only you

can decipher—

a map of all my failures,

my bruised history,

my half-healed hurts.

Somehow you see it all

and still call me good.

You choose me—

not because I'm polished,

not because it's easy,

but because you know

the unedited version of me

and...love him, anyway.

So I keep learning—slow as healing,

gentle as breath—

to trust the truth your love keeps repeating:

that I'm not your bad decision,

I'm not standing on borrowed time,

I'm not a placeholder until realization sinks in, or

until my trauma finally overwhelms you.

Somewhere there's a man

who could surely show you love

like you show me.

But you stay.

And every day I'm trying—

fumbling, struggling—

to believe in the kind of grace that

gives me you.