I saw how hard you tried.
How much you gave. How deeply you cared. You loved like someone trying to prove she's finally enough.
You mistook my steadiness for distance.
My calm for disinterest. Every time I needed space to breathe, you heard "I'm leaving."
You kept asking for reassurance, when all I wanted was for you to rest in my truth.
You were waiting for the moment I'd leave, and in that waiting, you never let yourself arrive.
You analyzed every text. Every silence. Every shift in my tone. You created problems to test if I'd stay. You picked fights just to feel me react, because my peace felt like indifference.
You didn't know how to believe love could stay. You kept trying to earn what was already yours. You couldn't receive it because no one ever taught you how, And I really tried to show you.
I watched you give everything to be chosen, and never once realized you already were.
You thought safety meant control. Peace meant distance. Love meant pain. So when it didn't hurt, you didn't trust it.
You needed constant proof I wasn't going anywhere, but no amount of words could quiet the panic inside you. Because the fear wasn't about me. It was the little girl in you who learned that love leaves.
You needed to heal, not to be held. To meet the part of you that still believes she's too much and not enough all at once.
Until then, every safe man will feel out of reach. Not because he isn't there, but because you still don't feel safe inside your own heart.
I never wanted you to chase me. I just wanted you to feel me. To breathe. To receive.
You didn't lose me because you weren't enough.
You lost me because you didn't believe you were.
And one day, when you finally make peace with yourself, you'll know, it was never my love you were running from.
It was your own.

A Love Letter from a Safe Man to the Woman Who Didn't Feel Safe to Be Loved
Art: Tijana Lukovic