Perfuming Neglect

Photo by Jayaraj Devaraj on Unsplash

---

I kept returning to a sentence I was taught to survive by:

“They loved you in their own way.”

A sentence that perfumes neglect.
That places silk over bruises.
That teaches you to call abandonment complicated love instead of what it was.

After a while, you begin stitching affection into violence, searching the wreckage for proof that being hurt meant being cherished.

But love is not hidden in cruelty.
Not in fear.
Not in the ruins someone leaves inside you.

So I buried the sentence with the rest of the excuses.
Actions speak.
And some actions have always been confessing hatred.