To Be Known

By T

You don’t flinch

when I hand you the tangled threads of me,

knots from years I can’t untie,

frayed edges I’ve hidden in shadows.

You read my silences

as if they were the loudest thing in the room.

You see the cracks,

not as flaws,

but as the way light finds its path through stone.

There are days

I am a storm you never asked for,

lightning too close,

rain too heavy.

Yet you stand there,

not to stop the clouds,

but to hold my hand until the thunder passes.

You don’t love the mask,

you don’t love just the best parts

you love the truth of me,

even the unpolished truths,

the small, scared child I still am in places.

And in that kind of love,

I am not fixed,

I am freed,

to be soft, to be messy,

to be more than I thought I was allowed to be.

You know me.

And somehow,

knowing everything,

you choose to stay.

By T