Maybe you won’t love me how I need to be loved.

I was never loved the way one should be to be honest. It was always all too painful. A balance of sorts. Good equals bad. Black equals white. What you give equals what you get. Transactional. Conditional. Transient.

Then I met you. It wasn’t so bad. You love me. Held my hand. Caressed my head. It isn’t enough to sustain a whole relationship but I was so deprived of all of this, I accepted. And it worked.

Now as the years go by, I see conditions in the way you love. I see you withdraw when I am struggling. Maybe you can’t love me the way I deserve to be loved. Maybe you’ll never put me first. Maybe I need to give up that hope.

I know life isn’t a fairytale but it’s what I grew up imagining. If I could survive that childhood, everything else would be better. But it just set me up for failure. For accepting the bare minimum. For not realising my own value. For thinking I don’t deserve all of it.

Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I wanted it from you. Maybe you’re incapable of giving it to me. And it hurts. It hurts so bad. I wish you’d love me as much as you say you do.