I won’t tell you how I stayed
When I should’ve walked away
How I let silence take my side
Because I thought love meant delay

I won’t tell you I forgave
Things I never understood
Or how I shrunk myself to fit
What someone called “being good”

I won’t mention all the times
I rehearsed the perfect line
Only to swallow it again
When her mood rewrote the rhyme

I won’t hand you all my bruises
Wrapped in lessons I misused
I’ll just say: “Be kind, be strong”
And hope that’s somehow true

I won’t tell you how I shut down
When they said “be a man”
How I mistook fear for pride
And wore it like a plan

I won’t share the nights I doubted
My worth in a stranger’s bed
Or how I let hands hold me
Who barely knew what I had said

I won’t teach you how to fight
Yourself just to stay kind
But I’ll watch you learn the cost
Of keeping peace inside your mind

I won’t say that love feels heavy
Even when it says it’s light
That “forever” is a mirror
Some people hang in fading light

I won’t cry when you get hurt
I’ll nod and let you speak
And I’ll wish that I could warn you
Without sounding like the weak

But if one night you can’t sleep
And the quiet feels too loud
Know that I once stayed too long
Trying not to make her proud

One day, you’ll meet someone
Who makes your heart race —
Too fast, too hard,
Too wrong to last.

And you’ll think that’s love.
But remember:
What grips tight
Doesn’t always hold true.

And the one who stays silent
Might be the one
Who’s learned the most.

I might tell you someday.
But probably too late.
Like everything we learn
By living what someone else couldn’t say.