The White Flag

Some people think a white flag means surrender.

It doesn’t.

Sometimes it just means you finally stopped fighting a war

you were never meant to win.

⸻

I loved you in a way that only happens once or twice in a lifetime.

Not the loud kind people perform for the world.

The quiet, stubborn kind—

the kind that survives storms, silence,

and  years of believing in someone

even when they can’t see themselves clearly.

⸻

I didn’t need you.

I wanted you.

That’s what made it different.

I wanted your stubborn, complicated, guarded heart.

I wanted the parts of you the world called too much

or too hard to understand.

I saw the scars—

and chose you anyway.

⸻

But love can’t survive

inside a house built on half-truths

and fear of what other people might think.

⸻

So today—

I raise my white flag.

Not because I stopped loving you.

Because I refuse to shrink.

⸻

The storm that lives in me

was never meant to be quiet.

It was meant to build something bigger

than both of us.

⸻

Maybe in another lifetime

we figure it out sooner.

Maybe in another universe

we don’t let fear drive the car.

⸻

But in this one—

I’m walking forward.

Still glowing.

Still dancing in the kitchen.

Still the woman you always knew I was.

⸻

And if our paths cross again one day,

it will only be because we both finally learned

how to stand in the truth.

⸻

Until then—

From the front porch swing.

I wish you the world. 

Peanut