The Door: When Poetry Becomes a Way Out

Thank you to the poem I once wrote

while my hands were trembling,

and my heart was trying to forgive

what should never have been survived.

You were cold

because I was freezing.

You were silent

because I was exhausted.

You spoke of the past

because the present was too painful to stay in.

You helped me realize

that love had already left the room

long before me.

And while I was still trying to stay

for the children, for promises, out of fear,

you were already teaching me

how to leave hell without becoming cruel.

I left.

I broke what was breaking me.

Three years later,

I write with warmer hands.

I no longer beg words to love me.

Love now stays.

Love now protects.

Love now chooses me.

Thank you, my first poem.

You were not the end.

You were the door.

And I walked through it.