**"Love’s Honest Deception"**

You asked for softness, but love arrives with teeth—
a hunger that gnaws at your ribs like a trapped thing
pawing at its cage.

It starts as a hum beneath your skin,
a whispered *"you’re safe here"* as hands map your spine
like territory to claim. You mistake possession
for prayer, the press of lips for salvation.
(You always confuse hunger for holiness.)

Then the unraveling:
Midnight silences thick with unsaid words,
the slow rot of promises in the space between pillows.
You learn their absence has weight—
it sits on your chest like a stone,
while their ghost traces the bruises they left
and calls it memory.

Love’s truth? It’s not the burning.
It’s the blisters left behind when the fire dies—
the way you pick at the scabs,
trying to bleed just enough to feel
something.

You’ll search their exits for meaning:
*Was it the way I loved too much?*
*Or not enough?*
(As if love could be measured in wounds.)

Here’s what no one warns you:
The leaving never ends.
Even gone, they live in your reflexes—
the way you still reach for them
in empty beds,
the way your body braces for impact
when the phone rings.

But listen, survivor:
One morning you’ll wake
and their name won’t taste like rust.
The mirror will show your scars, yes,
but also the light that got in
through the cracks they made.

You’ll realize love wasn’t the knife.
You were the o