I Know I Am Worth More Than You

This is how I watch the ashes of our relationship settle, but somehow the embers are still burning for me.

Your answer to anything uncomfortable or difficult was always either avoidance or anger. Usually it was the former followed by the latter when I could muster the courage to ask you what was wrong. I was always so soft when it came to you, taking any blame to diffuse the fire you ignited from my sadness.

I have never been afraid of love.

Knowing it hurts is only part of the tentative journey. But feelings of being ‘not good enough’ for you soon became secondary to breathing. And that was something I wasn’t used to. Nor did I want to get used to. I took your absence as a measurement of why I wasn’t worth loving back, but I realize that in our aftermath this silence speaks volumes about you more than it would ever on my self-worth.

I may not ever get the vulnerable clarity or an honest breakdown of everything from you that I’ve wanted for so long. But there is clarity in the love from those closest to me. And in the deepest blues that I anticipate to wash over me in the weeks and months to come, I’m choosing to be loved by them instead of fighting for a frightened love. Someone too scared to admit that opening up means he can’t hide behind his jokes, or space, or deafening silences to fully realize what love was.

I have always had the biggest capacity for love. But I can’t keep pulling whilst someone is constantly pushing.

There is never an easy way to let go or say goodbye, and though silence lives in the gaps of my ribcage in-between my lungs — though my breathing has become more labored, every breath becomes easier as I find the pieces of me you discarded.

I’m finding the light that I’ve clasped too long in my palms, slowing undoing its cage.

And even though we have ended, I could never let your silence be my undoing.