Never Gently
You asked me a question you only ever asked me. Not because I loved you less, but because you noticed I didn’t move through feelings the way other people do. You learned early that if you asked the wrong question I would give you an answer that was perfectly correct and completely useless. So we learned the precision of language. “I know you love me,” you said. “But what does that mean to you?” I don’t think I ever answered you. Not because I didn’t know. Because the answer didn’t live where words usually go. And then I heard what the word usually carries. Most people mean something gentle when they say love. They mean warmth. They mean closeness. They mean you matter to me. They mean I think of you when I plan tomorrow. They mean I don’t forget you when the room gets loud. That isn’t nothing. It may even be more than the words can hold. I just can’t live in it unless it moves. I don’t experience love as a feeling first. I experience it as assessment. As terrain. As fire behavior. As the moment the world shifts and I am no longer standing in it but in front of something inside it. There are acts I will not consider for myself. For those I love, there are none. When I loved John, I couldn't block the blow. So I learned the wind. I learned where the fire fed, where it jumped, where it doubled back looking for oxygen. And I changed its direction. I made myself the slope it preferred to climb. I pulled heat, attention, consequence into my own body until it learned my shape. So it would not take any more of him. It wouldn’t decide what he became. With my sisters, I held silence in my teeth until it cut me. Not because it was noble. Because it worked. Same house. Same bones. Different weather. When it was Ellie, I stepped toward the only thing that had ever taught me fear. I didn’t blink. I didn’t negotiate. I already knew how it ended. I moved anyway. When it was Tori, I was seventeen walking streets that belong to men who mistake fear for permission. I was looking for a car that lingered too long. For a man who thought he could touch her and leave something behind that would grow. When I tell my son I love him, it is not soft. It is a pain in my throat that sends ice to my heart. It freezes me in the worst position possible— omniscience. I see everything that could be. Everything that will try to be. And I know his greatest danger could be me. Not my hands. My ruins. I see everything that could reach him. Everything that will try. Still, I do not lock him away. I let him run. I let him learn the language his feelings speak. Then I study it relentlessly so he never has to be alone inside it. I stand far enough back to let him grow. Close enough to intercept myself. And that still feels like it isn’t enough. But when I say I love you— When I say it to you— I don’t translate first. I don’t scan your face before mine moves. With you, I was safe to feel it big. Loud. Uncontained. You studied me to understand me, not to judge me. So when I tell you I love you, it comes with teeth and claws and blood. It is forcing time to slow by sheer will so I can choose the right reaction when I am not fluent in the language of your eyes. I know what they should look like. I know how they should shine. So I pause. I choose. I meet you there. When I tell you I love you, it is my body walking through a house of minefields that only ever seemed to recognize my weight far longer than a body should. So you would never have to choose between me and the one who stayed. And here is the truth I never had language for then— When I tell you I love you, it is a sacrifice laid deliberately at your feet. A body that swore it would never give itself away again. A soul that knew exactly where this road would lead and walked it anyway. I abandoned every promise I made to myself. I silenced the part of me that knew the math and kept screaming it. And I chose to give you something else that would love you too. Because you deserved more than the world ever gave you. I made you your prince charming.