I wanted you to make me feel safe when I didn’t yet know how to create safety inside myself.
I wanted your love to answer questions it could never answer:
Am I enough?
Am I desirable?
Will you choose me?
Will you stay?
And somewhere along the way, I stopped asking whether I was choosing myself.
The world keeps moving with an almost offensive normality.
People go swimming.
Trains arrive.
cats demand food.
Friends send messages.
Plants grow new leaves.
Summer comes back.
I laugh sometimes.
And every time I laugh, I discover that my life continued without asking your permission.