for you, always.

[thestruggleofyou]

- credit: J.R. / @thepoetryofjr on Instagram

[thestruggleofyou]

[thestruggleofyou]

The love was real even if our future was not…

Maybe our relationship didn't end.

Maybe it was completed.

We were never going to be with each other forever.

We were just going to make each other better for the future.

But that hurts, because I would rather have you than anything else life has to offer, and I don't know how I'm ever going to get over that.

[thestruggleofyou]

[thestruggleofyou]

I read something today and it said,

"The unbothered anger that I have to swallow

to be soft

would bury you."

And it stopped me in my tracks.

I've never quite related my anger to words like that

because no one talks about the restraint it takes

to be soft.

The violence it took for me to be this gentle,

I was not born knowing how to kiss,

only how to bite.

But it's easy to forget

when I only ever show my teeth mid-laugh,

for I was passed down anger

like a family heirloom.

I was taught how to bare my teeth.

Tenderness was not native to me.

I chose to learn it.

The gentleness that falls from my tongue today

is not my first thought.

Sometimes it's not even my second

or my third.

It is a practice.

It is conscious effort,

and it is not always easy.

Not many people in my life today

know the anger that is buried beneath my kindness.

How many times I have stood

at the very edge of becoming

the very thing that wounded me

and decided to step away.

People speak about gentleness

as though it is the absence of violence,

but sometimes it is the very definition of it.

Do not mistake my gentleness for weakness,

for it is not the opposite of it.

It is not the absence of war.

It is what I chose to become

after surviving it.

If you believe that my kindness comes

from a lack of suffering,

then pray that you never have to hold

what I carry so quietly,

for I learned how to kiss

from a mouth that only ever knew how to bite.

[thestruggleofyou]

waiting

and then autumn arrived

while i still couldn’t let go

of spring

[thestruggleofyou]

handle with care

i am not fragile

but my heart is made of paper

if you’re not careful

you might crinkle it

or worse

create a tear that cannot be repaired

because torn paper can never be put back together

in quite the same way

i am not fragile

but my body is made of glass

if you’re not careful

you might leave a crack

or worse

shatter me

and even though stained glass is supposed to be beautiful

i don’t see beauty in the broken pieces of my body

i only see shards that have a tendency to cut whoever dares touch them

and someone always touches them

and then blames the shards for being sharp in the first place

i am not fragile

i am made of tape and glue

and the pieces

come back together

not the same —

but whole again

i am not fragile.

[thestruggleofyou]

last night i had a dream

i visited the place i hoped i’d never see

all i saw was damage from a fire

flashback to you calling me a liar

the house was barely standing

and you left me there, abandoned

i didn’t open up the door

i don’t need to remember anymore

this house is what built me

but i’m finally moving on from my history

i grabbed my bag and walked away

nothing here to make me stay

i didn’t even open up the door

i’m not who i was before

the pain still haunts my memory

but holding on to broken things isn’t the remedy

[mournfulroses]

Sara Torres, from her novel titled "X Is Where I Am," orginally published in March 2026

[thestruggleofyou]

i think we forget that life was never meant to be understood

it was meant to be felt

we spend so much time trying to figure everything out

trying to fix, explain, solve, control

but life is not a puzzle

it’s a wave

and you were never meant to carry the wave

you were meant to let it move through you

the joy, the fear, the heartbreak

the moments that didn’t make sense until much later

you were never broken

you were becoming

i think the sadness comes when we try to hold on

to what is meant to pass

we grip the moment, the person, the feeling

hoping to freeze it in time

but everything you have ever loved was borrowed

and the beauty of it was never in the holding

it was in the being

so if you are hurting, don’t rush to escape it

if you are lost, don’t race to find direction

feel it

all of it

because this too is part of the dance of being alive

and if you listen closely

even your pain is trying to teach you how to live

[deepwithinwords-deactivated2026]

[thestruggleofyou]

thump

thump

thump

my heart beats hard against my chest,

each one feeling like it might be my last

it’s not just my heart giving out

my lungs burn, begging for air

i hear myself gasping

the sound

unrecognizable

hot tears fall in waves

my cheeks sting

maybe today

isn’t about moving forward

maybe today

is about surviving

[thestruggleofyou]

that’s polaris. the north star.

that’s how sailors used to find their way home.

and when i look at you that’s what i see.

my way home.

[thestruggleofyou]

he stayed because he saw me for the man i really was.

a man surrounded by darkness.

no friends who could be trusted.

no faith that loyalty or love could ever truly exist.

i was —

well, i was younger then.

angrier.

he connected his life with mine

to show me, that day and every day,

that the world is not what i fear it to be.

he is the light in the darkness.

living proof that there is another way —

that life can be good.

that people can be kind.

that a man like me

might one day dream

of becoming a man like him.

he pledged his life.

offered it up as evidence

that i was wrong about this world.

[thestruggleofyou]

fallin' for you fucking up my knees

begging you to stay like pulling teeth

started as a papercut to me so I

didn’t know how much I'd bleed

catching every knife you threw at me

biting on my tongue so you can speak

[thestruggleofyou]

as soon as our plans are made

and i know the next time i’ll see you

my stomach turns weightless

like a missed step in the dark—

that split-second of

falling or floating?

my foot never quite finds the floor

until your lips meet mine

[resqectable]

“I hope you find someone who knows how to love you when you are sad.”

— Nikita Gill