I'VE LEARNED

                                                          

I'VE LEARNED

that I cannot keep making homes in other people.

  I tend to wear their words

  as rose colored glasses,

and hang onto hopes that one day

they'll deem me worthy of staying.

       See I thought,

that maybe if I tended to their gardens,

  If I loved them hard enough, 

or cared for them through thick and thin,

      that eventually

    it would be reciprocated.

  Because that's all we really want right?

For someone to love us just as much as we love

                   them.

           To be shown we matter.

               be respected,

                 cared for.

But that's the problem with planting parts of

     yourself in other people,

you can become a stranger in a home that you

    thought could be yours,

and then be left feeling vulnerable and broken

   once you get the eviction notice.

     So now I'm learning,

 how to tend to my own garden.

plant seeds that one day will grow into

       magnificent trees,

   love myself a little harder,

          So one day,

    when someone comes along,

they'll see how beautiful I've made the home in

           myself.

             I just hope

   the parts of me I already left behind

   grew into something beautiful too.