Bruised Cherry

They don’t know what it takes to be sweet and still standing.

To wear red, not for show, but because life has kissed you too hard. and you kept the color.

I’m not just soft, I’m cherry soft. Thin-skinned. Easily bruised. Not broken, but marked.

Touched, changed, hurt maybe, and yet still here.

I’ve been picked too soon, held too tight, bit into by people who never asked if I was ready.

But I stayed sweet. Even when I split. Even when I spilled. Even when the world thought I was only good for the taste.

In my head, you lay down next to me

Kiss my lips, hold me carefully

Say goodbye and feel all the withdrawals

But it's not the same in reality

I say your name, but you don't get back to me

'Til you got something you need me for

So, I sing just to know I'm alive

And I cried all the tears I could cry

If happiness is just an illusion

You were the best I ever had

If you can't be what I want

And the things you say aren't true

All I need is the great expectation of you

Expectation of you

The tracks of my tears go back for years

When I was young, I've always had the fears

One would leave, so, I held on so long

But to each their own, you come and go a lot

It's black and white, but I go back and change the plot

Just to have you in the way I want

So, I sing just to know I'm alive

And I cried all the tears I could cry

If happiness is just an illusion

You were the best I ever had

If you can't be what I want

And the things you say aren't true

All I need is the great expectation of you

Cry my tears and let them dry

Cry my tears and testify

You exist inside my mind

You so, so I

Sing just to know I'm alive

And I cried all the tears I could cry

If happiness is just an illusion

You were the best I ever had

If you can't be what I want

And the things you say aren't true

All I need is the great expectation of you

All I need is

What if I believed every word you ever said,

even after everything we’ve survived?

What if I never doubted your heart,

only my own?

What if you believed me too,

when I said I love you more than I know how to explain?

Maybe it was never just love.

Never just honesty.

Never our past,

our differences,

our broken promises,

or the ways we hurt each other.

Maybe the thing standing between us

has always been me.

My self sabotage.

My endless overthinking.

The scars I carried into your arms.

The trust I never learned to hold.

The fear that love always leaves.

The insecurity that whispers,

“Run before you’re abandoned.”

How do I tell you

I’m sorry I was never taught

what safe love feels like?

I’m sorry I never learned

how to rest in someone’s heart

without waiting for it to disappear.

I’m sorry my fears kept speaking

louder than your love ever could.

And the cruelest part is,

I know it isn’t only ruining us.

It’s ruining you.

It’s ruining me.

And I don’t know if there is anything more painful

than knowing I found the kind of love I prayed for,

only to realize

I never learned how to keep it.

Now I have to live with that.