I'm only human, I've got a skeleton in me.

I am furious with the hands

that reach for beauty

only to flinch when it reaches back.

Furious with the part of me

that mistakes safety for a trap,

that sees soft love

and immediately searches for the exit.

You loved me in a way

that asked for nothing but honesty.

No games.

No conditions.

No sharpened edges hidden beneath your smile.

And somehow,

that terrified me more

than all the heartbreak before you.

Because you saw me.

Not the version I perform.

Not the armor.

Not the excuses.

You saw the bruised places,

the fearful places,

the places I’ve spent years convincing myself

were too damaged to deserve tenderness.

And still, you stayed.

God, you stayed.

You wrapped your love around me

like a shelter from every storm

I’d ever learned to survive alone,

and instead of resting there,

I questioned the roof,

tested the walls,

searched for cracks that weren’t there.

I think I have spent so long

believing I am unworthy of something real

that when I finally held it,

I treated it like a mistake.

You were so pure in your intentions.

So open-hearted.

So brave with your affection.

And I—

I was a wildfire trying to understand

why a garden would trust me.

Now your absence sits beside me

like a punishment I earned myself.

I miss being known.

I miss being chosen.

I miss the quiet certainty

of your hand finding mine

and every frightened part of me

finally believing I was safe.

Most of all,

I hate that I am learning the value of your love

from the empty space it left behind.

Because you deserved someone

who knew how to protect

what you offered so freely.

And I am still trying to forgive myself

for being handed something beautiful

and not knowing

realizing I had something rare and treated it like it would always be there.

I miss your laugh, your touch, the way an ordinary night could stretch into hours of us tangled up together, talking, kissing, loving each other like we had nowhere else to be.

I miss the intimacy that went far beyond sex—

the way you knew me, the way you looked at me when my guard was down.

I took that for granted, and I hate that it took losing you to understand how deeply you had woven yourself into my life.

If I could go back, I’d choose you more carefully, love you more intentionally, and never assume I’d always have another chance.