Echoes in the Margins

Softly, I Became Me

They said they cared about my dreams,
but their voices told another story.
Support that faded when I turned away,
kindness that wilted when no one was watching.

They spoke of honesty,
but hid their truths in whispers.
Every word behind one's back
was a thread pulling me apart.
I stayed, hoping love would return,
but it never did.

When I finally left, the air felt still.
Almost sacred.
For the first time in so long, the silence didn't hurt.
It healed.

I remembered how it felt to breathe without asking,
to dream without shrinking.
And slowly, the world began to soften around me.

I've known love that wounded,
love that took pieces it never earned.
But I've also known the kind that stays when it's hard,
that listens, that lifts.

He found me when I'd already begun to mend,
and loved me in the spaces I thought no one could reach.
He doesn't fix me,
he reminds me I never needed fixing.

Now life glows quietly.
I smile without rehearsing.
The weight I carried is gone,
and in its place, I've grown something beautiful:
peace, love, and a heart that's mine again.