The Kind You Survive

I’m not the kind you settle beside.  

I’m the kind you survive.

I’m the cracked glass on the counter at 4 a.m.,  

the one you keep drinking from anyway.  

I’m the quiet that turns feral when you look away too long,  

the storm that doesn’t wait for permission to break.

I’ve loved people like a burning house—  

doors unlocked, windows open,  

smoke curling out like a warning no one listens to.  

And still, I keep striking matches in my own chest  

just to see who notices the light.

If I tell you I want you,  

I don’t mean it in the soft-focus way  

people pretend love feels.  

I mean I’d bleed out every lie I ever told myself  

just to hand you something honest.  

I mean I’d sit on the floor with you  

while everything you built collapses,  

and I wouldn’t flinch at the dust in your lungs.

I’m the bruise you press twice  

because the ache feels like truth.  

I’m the name you delete and retype  

because you swore you were done  

and you never really were.

But if you come back—  

don’t come polished, don’t come rehearsed.  

Bring the mess you tried to outrun,  

the trembling, the half-healed wounds  

you stitched with your own teeth.  

Bring the version of you that still shakes  

when someone says “stay.”

I’ll open the door like I’ve been waiting  

through every ending the world threw at us.  

I’ll hold you like the sky finally cracked  

and we’re the last two creatures crawling out of the dark,  

still choosing each other  

in the smoke and the aftermath.

Maybe that’s all we ever were—  

two disasters learning how to burn  

without turning away.

-𝕃ℝ 🖤