Teapot

I used to think love looked like your hands

on a teapot.

Not in grand gestures

not roses, not rings,

but in the way you lifted the lid

as if afraid the heat might rise too fast.

As if the water might speak back.

You moved like someone who’d once shattered something

and swore they never would again.

I watched you make tea

like it was a ritual,

your silence swirling with the steam.

The way you’d dip the bag,

slow, deliberate,

like you were baptizing grief.

Like you were trying to cleanse something

neither of us knew how to name.

You remembered exactly how I liked it

two sugars,

honey on hard days,

lemon only when I felt like leaving my own skin.

You handed me the cup

without needing words.

And I thought this is it.

This is what it means to be chosen.

But it was never the tea that burned me.

It was your voice.

Or worse

your refusal to use it.

How your silence filled the room

faster than any kettle could.

You would say,

“You’re reading into it.”

“Everything’s fine.”

But everything wasn’t fine.

It hadn’t been fine since the first time

I cried

and you said nothing,

just sipped your own cup

like I hadn’t just spilled

every soft part of me onto the table.

I was the teapot.

Round.

Porcelain.

Delicate in the way people call something beautiful

right before they drop it.

You kept turning up the heat

your tone, your timing, your carelessness

and wondered why I whistled.

Why my voice came out sharp.

Why I started sounding more like warning

than comfort.

And still,

you held me

like I was made to endure.

Like I was built

for boiling.

Your hands were always gentle

that was the cruelest part.

You rubbed my back while I shook.

You tucked my hair behind my ear

right after saying something

that unraveled me for days.

You said I was too sensitive.

That I misunderstood.

That I “make things heavier than they are.”

But love

don’t you know?

Teapots don’t explode

unless they’ve been sealed

and left too long on the flame.

I tried to tell you:

I am scalding on the inside.

But you just smiled

and poured yourself another cup.

You didn’t notice the hairline crack.

Didn’t see the glaze

peeling back from pressure.

Didn’t hear the faint hum

of a heart begging for a lower heat.

I stopped pouring.

Stopped whistling.

Started collecting quiet like rust.

Started sitting at the back of the stove

hoping maybe one day

you’d look at me

and realize

I was never just a thing

to keep your comfort warm.

I wasn’t made to serve

and survive.

I was made to be held with care

spoken to with tenderness,

even when the room filled with steam.

And now?

Now I live on your shelf.

Uncracked in your eyes

but no longer whole.

Still beautiful, maybe,

but empty.

Quiet.

Cold.

You still make tea.

Still lift the new pot

like it matters.

And I wonder

if you ever think about

the one that never broke

until it did.

The one that screamed

only once

then never again.