I refuse to change who I am.

I refuse to change who I am.

It took me a long time to understand what that really means.

When I say I won’t change,

I don’t mean I won’t make room for love.

I don’t mean I won’t buy a bigger mattress

to share the weight of another body to rest beside mine.

I don’t mean I won’t learn how to fold myself into someone else

so that the space between us is no wider

than the rise and fall of our breath.

I don’t mean I won’t leave my keys on the bench one last time

to step into the warmth of new walls

when the tiny feet running down halls

aren’t so tiny anymore.

What I mean is

at the base, at the core,

at the deepest parts of myself.

I will never change.

Behind my smile,

my eyes, my decorative nails and statements of fashion.

Beneath my freckles and scars

lingering long after their use-by date.

Underneath my breath, blood,

and the rhythms of my heart.

That person.

The one holding everything together.

She will never change.

For a long time,

I contorted myself into boxes crafted by all the wrong hands.

I shaped my words, my thoughts and my reactions

into a cocktail of flavours for different mouths to try.

I bent truths until they sat comfortably beside lies

and softened my morals to patch cracks on the walls

of rooms I never belonged in.

I don’t recognise the woman in those rooms,

existing only in the shapes that the spaces allowed.

Her screams seeping through the seems of poorly repaired plaster.

Sobbing that no one told her she could walk to the door,

turn the handle

and leave.

That outside was a field.

Soft grass, clear skies and flowers

grown from seeds she planted long ago.

That when she finally left,

felt the warmth of the sun,

the taste of the air,

let the wind move freely through her hair,

she could understand something so simple.

She was never too much.

The room was just too small.

I think of her often

I remind her it was never in her nature to stay.

That she is who I am today.

And I thank her for everything she taught me

Now I understand love differently.

Love is not a transaction, an exchange or a tasting.

Love does not make you shrink

or soften yourself into something more manageable.

Love stays,

even if the ground shifts beneath your feet.

Love fills,

days with presence

and meets nights with whatever you need most.

Love cheers,

from the sidelines when you miss the winning play.

Love holds,

you close to remind you,

you did better than okay.

Love has never

shut me out or in.

Love has never

cared if I loose or win.

Love has never asked me to change.

So yes,

I refuse to change who I am.

I understand that now.