Walls Around My Heart

Before you

Love was something distant
A language I could hear

But never speak
I learned to live behind my silence
To guard the tender parts of me
That bruised too easily
That hoped too fiercely

So I built walls
Not out of anger
But out of survival
Stone shaped from old heartbreak
Mortar mixed with every moment
I felt too much and said too little

Then you arrived
Not with force
But with a presence that felt like truth
You didn’t ask for entry
You simply stayed close enough
For me to feel

The warmth of your patience
Seeping through the cracks

You touched the places I hid
Not to expose them
But to understand them.
You held my fears as gently
As you held my hands
As if both were equally deserving of tenderness

And slowly
Almost imperceptibly 
The walls began to shift
Not because you demanded it
But because your love made it safe
To imagine a world without them

Now I stand here
Still learning

Still trembling
But willing
Willing to let you see the softest parts of me
Willing to believe that love
Doesn’t always leave

If you stay
I won’t ask you to break the walls down.
Just walk with me
As I open them
Brick by fragile brick
Until the space between us
Is no longer guarded
But shared