the leaving is also a kind of love 

i am a lover
and a leaver
and both.
not one or the other,
but somehow
all at once.

there was a time i clung so tightly—
to people,
to moments,
to the idea that love meant staying no matter what.
i used to believe
that if someone left me,
it was because i wasn’t good enough.
not smart enough,
not soft enough,
not beautiful enough.
i held myself
like a flaw
they’d eventually notice.

for so long,
i thought i had to earn being kept.
like love was a prize
and i had to audition for it.
like i had to make myself
smaller,
quieter,
easier to love.
i thought the more i gave,
the more they’d stay.
but sometimes,
the more you give,
the more people forget it’s even a gift.

and somewhere along the way,
i stopped asking: will they stay?
and started wondering:
do i want them to?

who are they, really?
why did i believe their acceptance
was the mirror of my worth?
i spent years
treating strangers like gods,
waiting for their approval
to tell me i’m enough.
but the truth is—
they never had that power.
they never should have.

i love deeply.
so deeply
that sometimes
i leave.
not out of fear,
not out of coldness.
but because love,
real love,
recognizes when something has run its course.
when staying
becomes
a slow betrayal of the self.

at first, i didn’t know how.
i stayed past the endings,
hoping they’d change.
i swallowed versions of myself
to fit their needs.
but now…
now i know.

i know when love
starts to feel like shrinking.
when connection
turns to convenience.
when my silence
is the only thing
holding it together.
and i refuse
to betray myself for anyone anymore.

i leave now,
not because i love less—
but because
i finally love me too.

the worth.
the knowing.
the return to self.
it’s all there now.

this is the thing i never said:
i was never too much.
they were just never enough to hold it.
and that’s okay.

not all endings are failures.
some are just
doorways back to yourself.

and god,
what a love it is
to choose you
after all this time.