He feels like home. He always has.

But only lately did I realize the way I saw home
also depended on how I first defined it.

And all I knew back then
was that he was my first love.
So love, had to look like him.
Or at least, that was the only kind
I ever allowed myself to receive.

Love, I thought, had to last.
Had to be fought for.
Had to never be lost again.

In my eyes,
he never stopped being the boy I first knew.
Even after all our talks about growing older,
about pain we carried,
about how we learned to survive,
he still looked like that boy
who used to walk me home from school.
The boy I loved so gently.

I thought, that must be real love.
To love someone just as they are.
To ask for nothing.
To simply be glad to be beside him again.

Then one day,
I caught myself feeling guilty
for considering what I needed,
instead of what he wanted.

Guilty for feeling.
Guilty for wanting time.
Guilty for explaining
so carefully, so softly,
just so he wouldn’t hurt,
even when I was the one
struggling to breathe.

The deeper we went,
the more our old wounds
rose back to the surface.

And no matter how hard we tried to heal it,
our love this time was stained.
With fear, pressure, memories,
we couldn’t fully leave behind.

Not because what we had wasn’t real.
I believe he loved me,
maybe just as much as I loved him.
Maybe more than that.

There are still questions living in my mind,
some even growing branches of their own.

And even now, as I write this,
there are moments when I still wonder.
Was this the right decision?

Or was there something still worth saving,
now that I know how we came undone?