Untitled

they sell in pastel quotes

and sunrise fonts.

I am the kind that learned

how pain sounds

when it’s trying not to be heard.

They call me a dark empath

like it’s something dangerous,

like it means I hurt people on purpose.

But what it really means is

I learned how to read silence

because mine was never answered.

It means I can feel your mood shift

before your voice changes.

I can hear the crack in your laugh

and tell you exactly where it came from.

Not because I want power—

but because I had none.

Because growing up,

I learned survival before softness,

hyper-vigilance before hope,

watching faces like weather reports,

measuring every tone

for the storm that might follow.

I don’t just sense emotions.

I map them.

I know where guilt hides in your shoulders.

I know where shame sits in your throat.

I know the look people get

when they are lying to themselves

and begging someone else to believe it.

And yes—

I could use that.

That’s the part nobody understands.

The dark part.

I know how to say the sentence

that would collapse you.

I know which memory to touch,

which insecurity still bleeds,

which wound never closed right.

But I don’t.

Because I know exactly

how deep words can cut

when you already hate your own reflection.

I know what it feels like

to carry too many diagnoses in your chest,

to be told you’re “too much,”

“too sensitive,”

“too broken,”

“too intense,”

until you start translating your existence

into apologies.

I know what it’s like

to hurt yourself quietly

so no one has to deal with your pain out loud.

So don’t confuse my restraint for weakness.

My empathy has teeth.

I just choose not to bite.

I see manipulation because I survived it.

I recognize emotional games

because I learned the rules too early.

I can walk into a room

and feel who is pretending,

who is drowning,

who is hiding behind humor,

who is one bad moment away from unraveling.

And somehow,

I still care.

That’s the contradiction.

I carry darkness in my awareness,

not in my intentions.

I don’t heal people

because I’m gentle.

I heal people

because I remember exactly

what it felt like to be ignored

while begging for someone to notice.

I don’t save anyone.

I just sit beside the broken parts

without flinching.

Being a dark empath means

I understand cruelty—

and still choose compassion.

It means I can stand in the shadow

of someone else’s trauma

without turning away.

It means I know how to hurt people.

And I choose not to.

Every day.

That’s the real power.

Not the darkness.

The choice.

like rust occupies iron—

slowly,

patiently,

until everything I touched

carried your stain.

I have spent years

mistaking survival

for living.

The calendar kept changing,

but I remained

inside the same long winter

you left behind.

There will come a morning

when your heart forgets

its ancient rhythm.

Not because I wished for it.

Because even storms

eventually run out of sky.

That day,

I won't search for revenge.

I won't need justice

to arrive wrapped in applause.

I will simply open a window

without expecting the air

to burn my lungs.

I will learn

what silence sounds like

when it isn't afraid.

Flowers will bloom

without asking your permission.

My laughter,

long buried beneath your shadow,

will remember

its own name.

People will think

I'm mourning.

They won't understand

that some funerals

are also birthplaces.

The day your heartbeat

becomes a memory,

mine

will finally become

a future.

And if the earth asks

why my shoulders feel lighter,

I'll say,

"Some chains

don't fall away

until the hands that forged them

can never reach again."

I survived the mouths of snakes.

The ones that hissed before they struck,

the ones with venom dripping from their promises.

I knew what monsters looked like.

Their teeth were honest.

Their danger announced itself.

I learned to run.

I learned to fight.

I learned to stitch my own skin shut

before anyone noticed I was bleeding.

So I thought

I was impossible to destroy.

Then you arrived—

not with fangs,

but wings.

You landed so gently

I mistook your weight for peace.

Your colors looked like spring

after a lifetime of winters.

You never looked like something

I should fear.

The snakes wanted my body.

You wanted my trust.

And somehow,

that was the deadlier hunger.

You didn't poison me.

You taught me to bloom,

then disappeared

the moment I opened.

It's a cruel thing,

to survive every obvious evil

only to be undone

by something beautiful.

People ask how I made it

through all the monsters.

They never ask

how I died

in the hands

that felt like home.

I survived all the ugly snakes.

But a beautiful butterfly

was the thing

that finally buried me.

I fell in love with a gardener—

someone who never rushed

a blooming thing,

who knew that love

was less about holding

and more about watering.

Their hands carried

the scent of fresh earth,

the kind that promises

something beautiful

is already on its way.

They smiled like sunflowers—

always finding the light

even after days

of endless rain.

Their laughter

was lavender,

quiet enough

to calm every storm

I carried inside my ribs.

Their kindness

was a daisy,

simple,

honest,

never asking to be admired

to be extraordinary.

Some days

they were a rose—

beautiful enough

to make the whole world stop,

yet guarded by thorns

that whispered,

"Handle me gently.

I've survived things

you'll never see."

Other days

they reminded me

of wildflowers

growing through cracked sidewalks,

proof that resilience

is its own kind of beauty.

Their patience

was a peony,

taking its time

before unfolding

into something

worth every season

of waiting.

And when they loved me—

they never tried

to make me

into a flower

I wasn't.

They simply knelt

beside the broken soil

of my heart,

pulled out the weeds

of old heartbreak,

watered the parts of me

I'd forgotten were alive,

and waited.

Not because they doubted

I'd bloom—

but because

they already knew I would.

I used to think

love was fireworks,

loud enough

to shake the sky.

Then I met a gardener.

And learned

that the greatest love stories

sound like rain,

look like dirt beneath fingernails,

and smell like jasmine

opening in the evening—

quiet miracles

that happen every day

to those patient enough

to grow them.

Is it the first time

he mistakes control for love?

The first lie?

The first fist?

The first moment he watches someone cry

and feels nothing at all?

Or does it happen slower—

one apology he never meant,

one wound he refused to heal,

one piece of himself buried so deep

that he forgot where the man ended

and the monster began.

Maybe monsters aren't born.

Maybe they're built.

Brick by brick

from abandoned children,

unanswered prayers,

empty bottles,

closed mouths,

and every "be a man"

that taught a little boy

to bury his heart alive.

But pain is not innocence.

There are people

who swallow oceans of suffering

and still refuse

to drown anyone else.

So when does a man become a monster?

I think it's the day

he sees the damage in his hands

and decides

it belongs there.

The day he stops asking for forgiveness

because fear is easier to earn than love.

The day another person's tears

become background noise.

The day he looks in the mirror

and doesn't recognize himself—

and doesn't care.

The cruelest part is this:

Monsters don't always roar.

Sometimes they whisper,

"I love you."

Sometimes they kiss your forehead

after teaching you

to fear the sound of footsteps.

Sometimes they convince you

that bleeding is what devotion looks like.

And sometimes...

The monster isn't the one

who learned how to survive.

It's the one

who decided

everyone else

should have to survive him.