i romanticize your cruelty

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you ever look back and feel like the cruelty was the only thing that made sense?

because i used to call it love. they were a little distant but warm enough to make me lean in. i thought that was mystery.

there were silence that screamed. messages that bled. i would reread every reply, trying to find where i went wrong. i thought if i could figure it out, maybe you’d stop punishing me for sins i didn’t commit.

the way they’d look at me like i was their whole world in front of people, make me feel like the luckiest person alive, only to turn cold the moment the lights were off. they’d touch my skin like it meant something, but their words left bruises that never faded.

sweet in person, cruel in chat. always. every text was a minefield. every pause between messages felt like punishment. and somehow i convinced myself that meant they cared.

they’d send broken posts about endings. about heartbreak. about being tired. while we were still together. while i was still trying. and when i’d ask what it meant, they’d laugh.

“don’t overthink.” “i just saw it.”

but how can you not overthink when someone you love is planting landmines and pretending they’re flowers?

they’d get mad without reason, pick fights i didn’t understand, then pull away and wait for me to chase them. and of course, i did. every time. because i thought if i left them alone, they’d disappear for good. and somehow, even that felt like my fault. like maybe i wasn’t enough. maybe i was too much. maybe i needed to be smaller, quieter, easier to love.

they made me believe that love was something i had to earn. like if i stitched myself perfectly enough, they’d stop ripping me apart. but it was never about me being flawed. it was about them needing someone to break because that’s the only way they felt powerful. and i let them. i let them use me as a mirror to project their pain onto, and i stayed because i thought love was supposed to hurt sometimes.

i told myself it was just their way of being. moody. emotional. going through things. i wrote an entire story in my head about their silence, their mood, their lack of effort, like it was tragic. like it was art.

i made excuses like “they’re just like that. i have to understand them.”

as if cruelty becomes beautiful when you call it complicated.

the ugliest truth is: it was never love.

it was emotional manipulation dressed up in romantic gestures. it was knowing i wouldn’t leave, so they never had to show up.

love isn’t supposed to feel like punishment.

and if you have to bleed just to prove you care. that’s not love.

that’s cruelty. romanticized.