In one house,
love meant freedom.
A table with open chairs,
questions welcomed,
mistakes forgiven,
truth spoken—even when it shook the room.
You could fall,
and still be called son.
You could rise,
and not be envied.
In the other house,
love meant performance.
Silence kept the peace.
Disagreement was disloyalty.
The louder one always won,
and the quiet ones learned to vanish.
There was no room for falling—
only fear of being seen doing it.
Love was earned,
then questioned,
then withheld.
I didn’t understand
why my kindness made her nervous,
why joy felt like suspicion,
why she shrank
when we tried to give her more.
Now I see it.
Her house called survival love.
Mine called truth love.
And when the two met—
we mistook trauma for mystery,
healing for control.
She wanted a love
that didn’t ask questions.
I offered one that did.
She thought mine was judgment.
I thought hers was shallow.
But we were just two children
raised in different languages,
trying to say “home”
in accents the other didn’t understand.
And maybe that’s the saddest part—
We didn’t fail because we didn’t care.
We failed
because we called two different things
love.