12/29/2024
Love this💙💫🩵
It Ends With Us
It ends with us.
The cycle, the pain, the silence passed down like inheritance.
The unspoken rules we never questioned.
It ends with us.
Not with excuses.
Not with “that’s just how they are.”
Not with “but that’s family” or “but that’s love.”
No.
It ends when we stop lying to ourselves.
It ends when we stop mistaking pain for patience.
It ends when we finally look in the mirror with a heart that have finally had enough and say,
“I deserve better.”
It ends with us —
the ones who’ve been told to "be quiet,"
the ones who’ve been taught to "be strong"
until "strong" started feeling like a life sentence.
But strength isn't how long you can hold on
Strength is knowing when to let go.
They told us to endure.
They called it “love” when it drained us dry.
They called it “loyalty” when it left us hollow.
They called it "tradition" when it chained us to suffering.
They told us, “That’s just how it is.”
But no one told us that “how it is”
isn't always how it has to be.
No more.
No more calling dysfunction "family."
No more staying in places that make our souls shrink.
No more smiling through broken teeth,
just to avoid being called "difficult."
No more calling it “respect” when it’s really control.
no more glorifying suffering as proof of devotion.
No more calling it “love” when it leaves bruises
— on your heart, on your mind, on your soul.
No more clinging to things that ask for all of us,
but offer nothing in return.
No more sacrificing ourselves to prove we’re "good people."
Because guess what?
"Good people" get used.
"Good people" get blamed.
"Good people" get left behind
the moment they have nothing left to give.
It ends with us.
With choosing peace over people.
With walking away from tables where love feels like a performance.
With unlearning the lie that suffering means you’re strong.
Call it what it is —
damage.
I’m tired of being strong.
I want to be free.
No more passing down survival guides to the next generation
for battles they should never have to fight.
No more raising daughters to "endure" and calling it "patience."
No more teaching sons to "be tough"
when all it does is turn them into men afraid to feel.
No more telling people,
"That’s just how it is."
No, it’s not.
That’s just how it’s been.
But it ends with us.
No more swallowing our “no”
just to keep the peace.
Peace that costs me my sanity
No more apologizing for boundaries.
No more apologies for existing too loudly.
No more second chances for people who weaponize our kindness.
No more "being the bigger person"
when the smaller person keeps stomping on you.
If protecting my peace makes me "cold,"
then let me be ice.
If choosing myself makes me "selfish,"
then call me greedy.
Because I will no longer live my life
trying to be small enough to fit in everyone else’s box.
It ends with us.
With teaching our daughters that love should feel like safety, not sacrifice.
With showing our sons that softness is not a flaw.
With raising children who know that love does not live
where fear does.
No more telling them to "just be patient, they’ll change."
No, if they wanted to change,
they would have changed the first time they hurt you.
We’ll tell them,
"If they loved you, they wouldn’t ask you to wait for basic respect."
We've seen them beg for the love that was supposed to be freely given.
We’ve heard them say,
"But they love me, they just have a hard way of showing it."
No.
Love is not supposed to be hard to recognize.
If you have to decode it,
it's not love — it's control.
We’re not here to keep quiet anymore.
Not here to keep the peace
when the peace costs our sanity.
Not here to "make it work" with people who refuse to grow.
If you can’t meet me in healing,
you can stay where you are.
If love requires me to shrink,
it is not love.
If "family" means swallowing my voice,
then I’d rather sit at a table alone.
It ends with us.
With the courage to say,
"I don’t care how long it’s been this way —
I’m done."
Done being the peacemaker when no one makes peace for me.
Done excusing red flags just because I’ve seen them before.
Familiar pain is still pain.
It doesn’t hurt less just because you know its name.
It ends with us.
With knowing that blood isn’t thicker than boundaries.
With understanding that love without respect
is just another prison,
and I was not born to live behind bars —
not even the pretty, invisible ones.
It ends with us.
With women walking away from men
who only know how to love with their fists or their silence.
With men unlearning the lie that tears are "weakness."
With children who will grow up knowing
they don’t have to "earn" love by suffering for it.
With people who will not apologize
for saving themselves.
This is the generation that says,
“NO MORE!.”
No more breaking ourselves to keep others whole.
No more believing that loyalty means losing yourself.
No more turning away when we see injustice,
just because it’s “not our place” to speak.
If I see it, I’ll name it.
If it’s wrong, I’ll call it.
If it’s hurting me, I will leave.
They’ll call us heartless for having a backbone.
Let them.
They’ll say we’re selfish.
Let them.
They’ll say we’ve changed.
Good.
That was the whole point.
They’ll say we’re “forgetting where we came from.”
No, we’re just refusing to stay there.
They’ll say, “You think you’re better than us now.”
No, I just think I deserve better than this.
And I do.
So do you.
I’d rather be called names
than live in a house made of broken glass,
cutting myself every day just to keep everyone else comfortable.
It ends with us.
With walking away from relationships that only take,
even if it means walking alone.
With breaking cycles we didn’t create,
even if it means disappointing the people we love.
With choosing peace over people who only bring war.
It ends with us.
Because we’re not afraid to be "the villain" in their story
if it means being the HERO in ours.
Because no child of mine will inherit my silence.
Because no version of me will be left behind in pieces.
This is where it ends.
The generational curses dressed up as "culture."
The suffering disguised as love.
The loyalty that tastes like poison.
The cycle of "this is how it’s always been."
No, it isn’t.
Not anymore.
It ends with us
And this time,
it stays ended.
It ends with us.
Not because it’s easy.
Not because we’re stronger than the ones who came before.
But because we finally see it.
The cycles.
The patterns.
The red flags dressed as roses.
Not anymore.
We see it now.
We see it for what it is,
and we refuse to let it continue.
It ends with us.
Not with silence.
Not with patience.
But with rage if necessary.
With a roar if needed.
Because if we don’t end it,
it will pass itself down to our children.
And I’ll be damned if I hand them the same wounds I’ve been trying to heal from.
It ends with us.
With breaking free from people who only loved us
when we were easy to control.
With choosing to be "alone" over being used.
With letting go of the fear that we’ll be "unlovable" without them.
We are lovable.
We’ve always been lovable.
They just made us think we weren’t
so we’d stay.
It ends with us.
Because survival is not enough anymore.
I don’t want to just survive.
I want to live.
I want joy that doesn’t come with conditions.
I want love that doesn’t demand my silence.
I want to exist without having to earn it.
They’ll say,
"You’ll regret it.”
But I’ve learned the only regret
is staying longer than you should have.
And I’ve stayed long enough.
It ends with us.
With women who leave.
With men who heal.
With children who grow up knowing that love is not a battle,
not a punishment,
not a prize you have to win.
It ends with us.
Right here. Right now.
No more passing it on.
No more carrying it forward.
No more accepting it just because it’s familiar.
It ends with us.
And this time,
it stays ended
©️Coral Charm
