How do you cry yourself to sleep and still call it love?

It’s not love if it guts you nightly and leaves you bleeding on your own sheets.

It’s survival in disguise, and I have mistaken the ache for whatever version of love I have convinced myself to believe. I call it a bad habit wrapped in pretty excuses. Something I return to not out of hope, but out of muscle memory.

I know how to hurt here. I know the routine. The long pauses in conversation, the half-hearted apologies, the apologies I give on your behalf just to keep the day from crumbling.

Deep down, I know. But comfort in pain is still comfort, and leaving would mean admitting it was never what I needed in the first place. I have swallowed my pride so many times I am not sure it has shape anymore.

So I stay, because I am tired of explaining myself. Tired of hoping that the next person won’t disappoint me in the same way. I stay because there’s something familiar about this ache. I know how to navigate it, how to soften the blow before it lands, how to keep my voice steady even when my hands tremble.

I have trained myself to interpret indifference as patience. I shrink a little every day, just enough not to take up too much space.

I rewrite every wound as devotion. I tell myself that real love takes work, that this is what it means to stick around. I cling to that one good night from months ago like it’s proof that things are still salvageable.

I romanticize the silence. I tell myself you are just tired. I ignore the way you have stopped looking at me the same. I ignore the way you never really listen anymore.

I call the distance growth. I call the arguments passion. I justify every crack in the foundation because to admit it’s breaking is to admit I am still here in the ruins, choosing you over myself.

I water dead things and call it patience. I stay up at night wondering if you are asleep beside me or just pretending. I stare at the ceiling, measuring my worth by how quickly you respond, how often you reach for me, how long it takes for you to say goodnight.

I count the times I had to beg for affection in ways that didn’t look like begging. I think of all the times I should’ve left, all the warnings I ignored, all the people who told me this wasn’t it … and I hated them for it.

This isn’t love. It’s a slow erasure. A deliberate undoing. I tell myself I am strong for staying, but it’s not strength if it’s fueled by fear. It’s not bravery if my heart has to die a little just to keep beating beside yours.

I am holding on because I am afraid of the silence that comes after goodbye. Because I don’t want to sit with the emptiness. Because even the sharp pain of staying feels easier to endure than the blank ache of being alone.

I keep crying myself to sleep, keep biting my tongue until my mouth tastes like regret. I think about the past more than the present, because at least the past made me feel something close to alive.