—After All the Times I Tried

I bought books on trauma,

dog-eared the chapters that sounded like your name.

Highlighted the parts that made excuses for your rage,

then read them out loud to myself like scripture.

I called it love,

but it was a lesson in self-erasure.

I said you were hurting.

Said you were broken,

said you just needed someone to stay

when everyone else had left.

So I stayed.

I traced your wounds like maps,

as if healing them would keep you home.

I carried your moods in my pockets,

checked my voice for sharp edges

before I spoke,

just in case it made you spiral.

I took the blame

like a sacrament—

blessed, broken, passed around.

You threw things.

I apologized.

You lied.

I justified.

You left bruises.

I called them weather.

When you said you felt suicidal,

I locked the knives away.

I slept by the door.

I prayed you wouldn’t follow through

on what you never actually meant.

I gave you grace like oxygen.

And you exhaled poison.

I made you coffee.

Let you cry in my lap.

Wrote your resume.

Held you when you cursed your mother.

Held you when you cursed me the same way two weeks later.

Said, “It’s okay, she didn’t mean it,”

when you became her.

I called it love.

But it was mercy.

And it was mine.

And I gave it away

like I didn’t need any left for myself.

I thought if I fixed you,

you’d choose me.

Thought if I stitched your skin

you’d stop cutting mine.

But you didn’t want fixing.

You wanted worship.

You wanted someone to kneel.

And I—

I wanted you to be whole

so I could finally rest.

But I was never your healer.

Just your host.

And now I know—

if I have to bleed to make someone better,

they were never healing.

They were feeding.

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