A Season Love Couldn’t Reach You
You weren’t single.You were in hiding.
Not from love,but from what it might require.
They said you were guarded.That you needed time.But what you neededwas a reason to believethat time hadn’t already run out.
You called it standards.You called it self-worth.But it was fearwearing better clothes.
You built systems to keep love outand named them boundaries.But they were laws.Passed silently.Enforced daily.
Every gesturewas interrogated.Every kindness,a threat.
You flinched at softness.You smiled at distance.You dated from the edge of yourself,filtering every touchthrough the memory of the last bruise.
And so love came.But it never made it through the door.
Twelve locks.No key.
You memorised red flags,but forgot how to see green ones.You weren’t dating.You were ghost-hunting.
And the ghosts wore your pastlike perfume.
It wasn’t that love gave up.It just got tiredof proving it wasn’t the enemy.
But this isn’t about the person who hurt you.This is about the version of youthat never felt safe enough to be reached.
You don’t need to become more lovable.You need to become more open.More here.More whole.
You don’t need to chase.You need to unlock the doorand sit stilllong enoughto hear someone knock.
johnthegriot.com/poems/a-season-love-couldnt-reach-you