Hand-me-down Armor

I was raised
to hold myself like stone.
Not proud,
just prepared.
To be the ceiling,
the walls,
the quiet floor beneath collapse.
To never knock on doors
I could learn to build myself.

I watched a woman
fold her life into corners,
softness traded
for survival.
She gave and gave
until she became
the empty space
between offerings.

And I watched a man
stay still
for so long
he forgot
how to leave.

I became neither.
Only what’s left
when love forgets

itself.

I know how to weather:
storms, silence,
rooms that echo back
nothing but my own voice.
I keep my tenderness
wrapped in bone.

But sometimes,
when the night spills soft
and the world exhales,
I wonder
if I’ve made myself
so unbreakable
I’ve forgotten
how to be held.

There are men
who speak in ellipses,
and orbit without landing.
You, especially—
mirror of my deflection.
We share the same distance,
the same refusal
to name the ache.

I almost told you once
about my mother’s wine
in morning mugs,
my father’s shoes
always pointed elsewhere.
But I didn’t.
Because to speak
is to need,
and needing makes one
fragile.

That’s what I learned
from a woman
waiting for
a man already gone.

So I keep love
like a secret
tucked between ribs.

Still,
there are nights
I imagine a voice
doesn’t ask,
a hand
doesn’t take.

Someone who stays
not for shelter,
but for the sound
of the rain.

Until then,
I remain
a tide that pulls back
before it touches shore,
carrying all this longing
like a constellation
only I can read.