What I Meant

When I said
we were okay,
I meant
the storm
wouldn’t
break us.

I did not mean
you could step away
from the fire
we both
tend.

And when I said
I’d support you—
your longing,
your becoming,
your tender ache
to navigate
Old deep wounds,
your daughters,
your mother’s shadow,
the whole lineage
of women
you’re still
untangling—
I meant
I see you.

I know
what you’re carrying.
I know
some nights
your heart
is a battlefield
of old loyalties
and new wounds,
and that you move
through storms
I will never
fully name.

But somewhere
between your fear
and my reassurance,
a silence
took root.

You heard
permission
to rest.
I heard
the call
to carry.

And I have carried
much
without complaint—
not because
you asked,
but because
love taught me
to lift
before I asked
for help.

But now
I feel the imbalance,
the soft but certain
tilt
in the rafters.

I want
your hand
back on the beam.

Not as burden,
not as duty—
but as the quiet,
steadying
presence
of a partner
who remembers
what we’re
building.

I’m not asking
for more
from you.
Only
that you return
to the place
where we both
begin.

Where you see
that what I hold
matters.
And where we learn
to shape this life
side by side—
not as weight,
but as breath.