Breathing

Because I love you,

I want to watch you grow

Like the flowers in the spring.

I’m here to listen as you wallow and to weep as you hurt.

Because I love you,

I want you to know how it feels

To be the happiest person in the world,

Feeling the weight of the world not on your shoulders but under your feet.

Because I love you,

I want to encourage your ambitions

And to praise your successes

As you become who you were always meant to be.

But no matter how much I loved him

I knew he could never feel the same,

For someone who loved could never be so cruel.

“Because I love you,”

He’d tell me,

Moments before his words struck,

As though the insults were helpful and like the put-downs were meant to motivate me.

I had to realize

That the harsh words

And the threatening undertones

Did not equate to love and could not be accepted.

I had to feel the pain

Not only from him, but from myself,

As I walked out the door, taking deep breaths, saying to myself that I was leaving

Because I love me.