Hard Love

The kind of love I was groomed and grown into

is not the kind full of touch,

affirmative words,

and verbally spoken

It’s not the loosey goosey I love you kind of love

Or the kind that consoles when I came home with a bad grade

Or the kind that was easily content and pleased with my existence

Or the kind that was… soft

Easily flowing abundantly

Filling any empty bottles it came across

I was more accustomed to hard love

Hard love is difficult to grasp

To understand

To accept

To lean into when I was feeling down

To see the impact on myself

And all I need was assurance and that being good enough is enough

Not good

Not better

Not best

But just, good enough..

Hard love sometimes hurts

It opens up an already opened wounds without bandaid on sight

It lets it suffer and heal by itself over time

Because then lessons are learned

And it would leave just enough scar as a reminder

That the world is a tough place

And that there is no use nor space for soft ones

For soft love

I love you

Seems such a foreign phrase in the past

A phrase that made me cringe

And my toe curls

My palms dry up

Yet never knowing the power of that phrase

And how much I needed it

As an adult trying to put a bandaid to the scar already healed

As a boy longing for tenderness that was never enough

And as a man trying to love another man