i have never known love that didn’t leave a bruise somewhere, even if it was shaped like a palm pressed gently against the small of my back, reminding me to keep walking when the street went quiet and my name felt like a threat.

some nights, i mistake survival for a lover who texts back late but always says the right thing. some days, i wish i could forget how good it feels to be wanted for the sound of my grief.

my body has learned to breathe through closed doors, has called it kinship when someone remembers my name after i flinch.

let me be honest: i have built altars from the broken. lit candles where silence should have meant no. kissed ghosts goodbye and still invited them back in,

because sometimes i need a witness even if they can’t hold me.

don’t call me resilient. call me the scream that stayed in my throat until it fermented into a poem. call me the fire alarm no one pulled. call me the boy who kept showing up to the wrong kind of church, hoping someone might bless the parts of him still covered in ash.

i am not healing. i am making room for the possibility that i might one day not have to.

#poetry