Recklessly, Dangerously in Love

To the version of me I left in my twenties. May you never return.

You didn’t knock.

You slipped in

like smoke under a closed door

quiet, intoxicating,

impossible to grab with bare hands.

You stood at the edge of my ribcage

like a thief studying blueprints,

learning the security system of my heart

before breaking in.

You called me “safe.”

You called me “home.”

But you were only measuring the furniture

before rearranging my sanity.

You smiled

and it felt like sunrise.

You spoke

and the storms in my mind laid down

like obedient dogs.

You touched me

and I mistook electricity for intimacy.

You played with my children,

and I mistook performance for protection.

You weren’t loving.

You were auditioning.

And I

I gave you a standing ovation.

You were a beautifully bound book

with gilded pages

and missing chapters.

I read you slowly at first.

Carefully.

Tracing sentences with trembling fingers.

But somewhere between chapter five

and chapter forever,

the ink began to bleed.

Your words didn’t match your actions.

Your promises had expiration dates.

Your apologies were scripted.

You were not a man.

You were a maze

that rearranged itself

every time I thought I found the exit.

I fell in love

like someone stepping into quicksand

confident at first,

certain I could pull myself out

whenever I chose.

But you wrapped around my lungs

like ivy around brick.

Tight.

Beautiful.

Suffocating.

You became oxygen laced with poison.

A glass of water

with a slow-acting toxin.

I drank you daily.

Sleep became optional.

Peace became conditional.

My reflection became negotiable.

I argued with ghosts

with screenshots,

with silences,

with the perfume of other women

lingering in digital spaces.

You told me I was overreacting.

You told me I was insecure.

You told me I was imagining things.

And I believed you.

Because gaslighting is a soft flame

you don’t see the fire

until your house is already ash.

My mind raised red flags.

My heart folded them into love letters.

I told logic to sit down.

Told discernment to hush.

Told intuition it was paranoid.

I chose you

over the evidence.

You touched me less.

Loved me less.

Kissed me like obligation.

But when you did touch me

it felt like resurrection.

That’s the cruelty of addiction.

The same thing killing you

is the only thing that makes you feel alive.

You were the monster

under the bed

wearing a crown.

The villain

in a hero’s costume.

The bedtime story

mothers warn their daughters about

except I prayed

my daughter would feel a love

this consuming.

What kind of contradiction is that?

The kind born from trauma.

The kind raised on breadcrumbs

calling them feasts.

You watched me bleed from other men’s wounds.

You promised to be different.

Then you sharpened the blade

with my trust.

You didn’t hit me.

You erased me.

Piece by piece,

you convinced me

I was too much

and not enough

in the same breath.

My achievements shrank.

My flaws grew teeth.

My confidence began to beg.

I wrapped you in defense

like silk around venom.

I told my friends

“You don’t understand him.”

They understood.

I just didn’t want to.

You were my drug.

Not the loud kind

the slow drip.

The kind that rewires chemistry.

I tried treatment.

Another relationship.

But sobriety felt empty

without your chaos.

So I relapsed.

Back into your arms.

Back into your bed.

Back into the war zone

I called love.

You made my body light up

like a city at night.

My pulse saluted you.

My skin memorized you.

And that’s the trap

when chemistry impersonates destiny.

I chose bandages

over surgery.

Smiles

over screams.

Because healing meant losing you.

And losing you

felt like dying.

But here is the truth

I didn’t want to read:

You didn’t wreck me.

I wrecked myself

trying to love a man

who only loved his reflection.

You weren’t my forever.

You were my lesson.

A masterclass in manipulation.

A doctorate in deception.

A mirror forcing me to confront

why chaos felt like home.

I was recklessly, dangerously in love.

Not with you.

With the idea

that if I loved hard enough,

sacrificed enough,

proved myself enough

you would choose me fully.

But what I wanted

didn’t want me.

And love—

the kind without boundaries

is not love.

It’s self-abandonment

wearing perfume.

You were the fire.

I was the gasoline.

And when it was over,

I stood in the ashes

finally understanding

I wasn’t addicted to you.

I was addicted

to surviving you.

I was recklessly, dangerously in love.

And it almost destroyed me.

But here’s the part you didn’t expect

I survived.

And I am no longer flammable.

#overyou #reckless #strongerthanbefore #dangerousinlove #survivedyou #stillstanding