• they never bring me flowers •

I know that what I want, what is good for me and what I deserve are often never the same.

I don’t know why I’m built this way. Why I want the ones who are the hardest to love. Why I chase love that never chases back. Why I hold dearest what seemingly holds me in a lesser regard. Why I plant flowers where they will not grow.

It’s like I want to prove to them that they are worthy, that I can love and nourish them where they have often been neglected, but, I find that those are the ones who do not know how to or are unwilling to give you the same in return.

It used to be that I would go almost the full way. Requiring so little from them. I’d make it as easy as I could. I’d try to do it all for both of us. Because I never felt like I was someone who could ask or demand more than this.

All the shortcomings, the too busy days, the it’s oks, the unanswered messages, the being felt to be forgotten, the forgiving without apologies and the never-ending excuses.. all of that wasted emotion and energy… that was me trying to show them that I was different from the others who gave up on them and that I was good enough when all along wasn’t it them who was truly not good enough for me?

If anything, I have learned, that when they tell you that they don’t deserve you, you should believe them.

Because even a person who believes they do not deserve you, if they want you, will do everything to become a person who does.

But, those that don’t, even when they knew the price they’d pay was you, will never try to make up lost ground or replenish what was lost.

And, because of this, all love has ever done was leave them a little more and me a little less.

After years of giving without taking, I have grown weary and my walls, well, they just keep growing taller, wider, thicker to where I may never let another in. As I have realized that all that wasted love I was constantly giving them should have been gifted to myself. So, brick by brick, heartache by headache, I close myself in. Protecting my garden. Planting the seeds here, within, where I know I can make them grow.

LL

the blood
& the bones