I Didn’t Know You Were Horrible (Until I DId)

I didn’t know you were horrible.
I thought you were strong.
Not in the showy kind of way—
you were never loud.
You were quiet,
hard to read,
like a locked room with the curtains drawn.
But I thought that meant depth.
I thought it meant still waters.
I thought it meant wisdom.

I adored you.
There. I said it. I said it so many times before.
Like a child memorizing constellations,
as if knowing you
could help me know myself.
I thought you were the good kind of complicated.
The kind worth figuring out.

I believed in you
with the kind of faith only younger hearts have—
wild, unquestioning,
aching to belong.

You didn’t say much.
But when you did,
I listened.
Every word felt rare.
Heavy.
I built cathedrals around your silence.

I thought we were close.
I thought we understood each other
in the way some just do—
without needing to say much.
I thought we were safe
in that quiet bond.

And then—

Then came the stillness
that felt like doors closing.
Then came the things you did
that no silence could explain away.

I watched you leave someone helpless
because it was easier than helping.
I watched you take
what wasn’t yours—
and tell yourself you were owed it.
I heard what they said.
What you were accused of.
And I saw what you did with that accusation:
nothing.
No fire.
No fight.
No remorse.

And yet, you carry yourself
like a man with clean hands.
Like someone who’s been wronged,
not someone who’s done the wrong.

You live in a house
that children can’t bear to stay in.
You walk through life
as if the burden you carry
is everyone else’s failure to understand you.
But I understood you.

Eventually.

And it shattered something in me.

Because I did love you.
I really did.
I saw good in you
where there was only shadow.

I didn’t know you were horrible.
Not then.
Not when I loved you the most.

But I know now.

And God—
what a thing to learn.