Perfect Rope

I wish loving you had ended
the first time you hurt me.

That would make this easier.

I wish love were a light switch—
something I could reach for in the dark
and click
off.

But love is crueler than electricity.

Sometimes it keeps running
through houses that should have been condemned.

And I still love you.

There.
I said it.

Not because what you did was okay.
Not because I have forgotten.
Not because forgiveness is something
you can demand from me
like another password,
another explanation,
another piece of myself
I have to hand over
to prove I’m not hiding anything.

I love you
because love does not always leave
when safety does.

And God,
I hope you change.

Not for me.

Not so we can rewrite the ending
and pretend the middle never happened.

I hope you change
because somewhere underneath
all that fear you called love,
all that possession you called protection,
all that control you dressed up as caring—

there has to be a person
who understands
that love is not surveillance.

Love is not interrogation.

Love does not need to know
where someone is
every second
to believe they are coming home.

Love does not punish honesty
and then complain
that nobody tells the truth.

Because honesty
is authenticity.

And authenticity is terrifying
when you have spent your whole life believing
that if you can control the truth,
you can control whether people leave.

But people are not possessions.

You cannot hold someone tighter
and call it intimacy.

You cannot make their world smaller
and call yourself their whole world.

You cannot clip someone’s wings
then say,

See?
You never fly anywhere without me.

That isn’t devotion.

That’s a cage
with the word LOVE
painted above the door.

And maybe the hardest thing
I have ever had to learn
is that someone can love you
and still hurt you.

Someone can miss you
and still manipulate you.

Someone can cry when you leave
and still be the reason
you had to go.

And I can love you
and still choose distance.

I can remember the softness
without denying the violence.

I can miss the version of you
who made me laugh
without handing my life back
to the version of you
who made me afraid.

Both things can be true.

That is honesty.

That is authenticity.

I will not lie about loving you
just to make leaving look stronger.

Leaving was strong
precisely because I loved you.

Because sometimes
the bravest goodbye
is not spoken with hatred.

Sometimes it sounds like—

I love you.

And this is unhealthy.

I love you.

And you cannot control me.

I love you.

And I hope you become someone
who never makes another person
confuse being wanted
with being owned.

I hope someday
you learn that trust
cannot be squeezed from another person’s throat.

That accountability
is not humiliation.

That boundaries
are not abandonment.

That another person’s freedom
is not a threat to your worth.

I hope you become honest
with yourself.

Tell the truth of your past and present.

Brutally, beautifully honest.

Because maybe authenticity
is standing in front of the mirror
without excuses
and finally saying:

I did this.

I hurt someone I loved.

And I have to change.

Not—

Look what they made me do.

Not—

I only acted that way because I cared.

Not—

If they had just listened to me.

Just:

I did this.

And then doing the impossible work
of becoming different.

I hope you do.

I really do.

Because despite everything,
there is still a small room inside me
where I remember who I thought you were.

And it’s so fucking beautiful

But I don’t live there anymore.

I don’t sleep there.

I don’t leave the porch light on.

But sometimes
I pass by the window
and wonder
if one day
you’ll finally become
the person
I kept believing
was inside.

And if you do,

I hope you understand
that my love was never permission.

My compassion was never consent.

My hope for your healing
was never an invitation
to hurt me again.

I can hope you change
without waiting for you.

I can wish you healing
without becoming the place
where you practice your craft.

And I can love you—

quietly,

from somewhere you cannot reach—

while finally loving myself enough

to stay gone.

I deserved more. I deserved truth.

I deserved an apology.

And Until you stop lying gone is a place I feel at home.