(reflections on my past, not my present)
love is patient and kind.
love never fails.
but what about when love isn’t love. like a beautiful box of hope, wrapped in the best paper with the prettiest of bows, with a smile ear to ear at the anticipation of the feeling inside, opened to discover emptiness.
raised voices. cold stares. fear. words said with “because i love you” but that love isn’t love.
you know inside it isn’t, but begin to wonder, what is it. it’s not all bad all the time.
maybe i’m sensitive, maybe it’s me, maybe i need to try harder. and you do. you try.
you try, with tears in your eyes. you try, with fear in your heart. you try, hoping, that if you can just be what they want, they’ll love you. they’ll stop yelling, they’ll stop hurting your soul, breaking your spirit. they’ll see you like they did all those years ago, when you first thought (felt) they were loving, that they cared, that they would protect you. before it all changed, before you found yourself lost in a world you didn’t recognize.
it’s not love. when someone says they “love you” and treat you without it, it isn’t love.
it isn’t love. when they crush your spirit, make you question who you are. make you feel like there isn’t anything left to love, that no one else would want you. that they’re just trying to help you not become who you don’t want to be because they “love” you. it isn’t love.
even when they say it, “i love you”, it isn’t love. it’s empty. hollow words meant to hold something so great, but all that exists is darkness.
it takes time to understand that what may have started as love, isn’t. the words don’t carry any meaning. it cannot bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. we want it to, but when love isn’t love, it is vacant of the healing and power that honest love possesses.
love that isn’t love, fails.
but remember this, you are worthy of real love. you may struggle as you relearn these things, to trust, to open yourself up. you’ll find yourself struggling to feel that you are enough, you are good, you are not all the things they said you were. you will one day feel love warm your heart, illuminate your soul, fill the box with all it was meant to hold. to know the love that is love, the love that does not behave indecently, does not become provoked, the love that never fails.
be kind to yourself.
love heals hearts.
love heals hearts 