Where Love Heals

I kept thinking
we were looking
for the same thing.

A place
where the noise
finally stopped.

I called it
home.

You called it
a place
you’d only visit.

I used to wonder
what I did
to make you
keep choosing distance

inside
the moments
that should have
felt closest.

Now I know

it was never
about me.

You weren’t afraid
of loving me.

You were afraid
of meeting
the parts of yourself

that love
would have asked you
to face.

For a long time,

I mistook
surviving you
for loving you.

There’s a difference.

One leaves you
counting
everything
you said wrong.

The other
lets you forget
there was ever
a score.

I don’t hate you.

Hate
would mean
I was still carrying
what belonged
to you.

I’m not.

I left it
where you dropped it.

What I carry now

is lighter.

It sounds like
my own laughter.

It looks like
flowers
I buy myself
without waiting
for a reason.

It feels like
walking into a room

without wondering
if I’ll have
to become smaller

to stay.

You once
looked at me

and saw
someone broken.

I look back

and see someone

still trying.

Someone
who kept choosing love

even when
it wasn’t
being returned.

There is no shame
in that.

Only proof

that my heart
was never
the thing
that needed fixing.

I hope
one day

you discover

that peace
cannot be stolen
from another person.

That no one
becomes whole

by teaching someone else
to question
their own worth.

As for me,

I’ve stopped
looking for home

in people

who only know
how to leave.

I found it
the moment

I stopped
asking someone else

to convince me

I deserved
someone that would stay.

Jacque Michele