Have you ever met someone who came with a warning label?
Not an actual warning label, obviously. Although, let’s be real, some people could probably use one. 🤣
I’m talking about the people you’ve heard stories about before you’ve ever had the chance to know them yourself.
The difficult ones. The assholes. The people someone else swears you should stay away from.
And sometimes those warnings are warranted. Sometimes people have genuinely hurt others, and those experiences deserve to be taken seriously.
But sometimes, there’s more to a person than the version of them you’ve been handed.
That’s where this poem came from.
Then He Met Me
He was always the villain
in somebody else’s story.
The asshole.
The difficult one.
The one who said
the wrong thing
at the wrong time.
The one people warned you about
after everything
was already over.
Every story about him
seemed to come
with sharp edges.
And then
he met me.
Not that I thought
I could fix him.
Fuck that.
I’ve spent enough of my life
trying to love people
into becoming better.
I wasn’t interested
in raising a grown man
or sanding down his edges
until he became
easier to hold.
I just—
looked at him.
Longer than most people did.
And what I found
wasn’t a villain.
It wasn’t a hero either.
It was a man.
Stubborn.
Sarcastic.
Sometimes so goddamn irritating
I wonder how
we’ve both survived this long.
A man who can hurt my feelings.
A man who has been wrong.
A man I have looked at
and thought,
You better figure your shit out.
But also—
the man who knows me.
Really knows me.
The little things.
The things nobody thinks
are important enough
to remember.
The things I like.
The things I don’t.
The things that make
a bad day
a little easier.
He has seen me
hurting
and wanted to make it stop.
Seen me stressed
and tried to give me
something good
to hold onto.
He has loved me
in ordinary ways,
which I think
might be my favorite kind.
Not flowers
every fucking Tuesday.
Not speeches
written for an audience.
Just—
I saw this and thought of you.
I know you wanted this.
Come here.
I got you.
The kind of love
that slowly moves into your life
until one day
you realize
someone has learned
where everything belongs.
Including you.
And no,
loving me
didn’t suddenly make him good.
Just like loving him
didn’t magically heal
everything that happened
before me.
We’re not a fairy tale.
Thank God.
We’ve fought.
We’ve misunderstood
each other.
We’ve said things
that needed apologies.
We’ve had moments
where love wasn’t enough
and effort
had to show up too.
That’s the part
people leave out.
Love isn’t proof
that nobody gets hurt.
Sometimes love is
I hurt you.
I understand why.
I will do better.
And then
actually trying
to do better.
Maybe that’s why
I never understood
the villain everyone else
swore he was.
Or maybe
I did.
Maybe I’ve just lived
long enough
to know everyone
is the villain
when someone else
gets to hold the pen.
I know I am.
There are people
who could tell you stories
about me
where I am difficult.
Angry.
Cold.
Too much.
Not enough.
There are chapters
of my life
I wouldn’t want
read aloud either.
He has them too.
We all do.
But I didn’t meet
the stories.
I met him.
And somewhere
between then and now,
the man who was always
the villain
in somebody else’s story
became the man
I come home to.
The man I laugh with.
The man I argue with.
The man I forgive.
The man I expect
to grow beside me.
The man I am building
a future with.
And maybe
that’s all love really is.
Not rewriting someone
into the hero.
Not pretending
the ugly chapters
were never written.
Just knowing
the whole story
and saying,
Give me the pen.
I want to see
what we write next.
Between the Lines
I think one of the easiest things we do as human beings is decide who someone is based on what we’ve heard about them.
We hear one story, form an opinion, and sometimes never bother to question whether there’s anything beyond it.
But here’s the thing.
People are complicated.
And I don’t mean that as an excuse for shitty behavior. Being complicated doesn’t give anyone permission to hurt people, and having a difficult past doesn’t erase the consequences of your actions.
I mean that people can be more than one thing.
Someone can be stubborn and thoughtful. Difficult and loving. Someone can make mistakes, recognize them, and genuinely try to do better.
And sometimes two people can have very different experiences with the same person.
This poem is about someone I love. Someone who, depending on whom you ask, might not always be described in the nicest terms.
But I didn’t fall in love with a reputation.
I fell in love with a person.
And that person isn’t perfect.
Neither am I.
We’ve had disagreements. We’ve gotten frustrated with each other. We’ve had moments where one of us needed to stop, listen, and realize we’d hurt the other.
Because here’s something I believe very strongly:
An apology means very little if the behavior never changes.
Love doesn’t excuse everything. It doesn’t mean you get unlimited chances to hurt someone just because they care about you.
Love requires effort.
It requires listening when you’d rather defend yourself. Admitting when you’re wrong. Understanding that your intentions don’t automatically erase someone else’s feelings.
And it requires recognizing that the person you love is still their own person, with their own thoughts, experiences, boundaries, and flaws.
One of my favorite parts of this poem is actually the moment where I turn the perspective around.
Because I know there are people out there who could tell stories about me that wouldn’t paint me in the best light.
I’ve been angry. I’ve been difficult. I’ve said things I regret. I’ve made decisions I wouldn’t make today.
I’m not the hero in every story I’ve ever been part of.
And neither is anyone else.
That doesn’t mean every criticism is unfair. Sometimes we really are the ones who got it wrong.
But I think there’s something important about recognizing that a person is more than the worst chapter someone else remembers.
This week, I’ve been writing a lot about beliefs, assumptions, and the way we see other people.
And I think this poem belongs in that conversation.
Because whether we’re talking about someone’s religion, appearance, reputation, or personal history, it’s worth asking ourselves how much we actually know before deciding who they are.
Sometimes the stories we’ve heard are important.
Sometimes they’re incomplete.
And sometimes the only way to understand someone is to give them the opportunity to show you who they are, while still paying attention to what they do.
I don’t believe love means ignoring someone’s past.
I believe it means understanding that the future hasn’t been written yet.
And if two people are willing to grow, take responsibility, and keep choosing each other, maybe they get to write something better together.
Not a fairy tale.
Not a perfect love story.
Just something real.
And personally?
I’ll take real.
Until next time,
-Destiny 🖤
P.S. For the record, the man who inspired this poem is still fully capable of getting on my last damn nerve. 🤣 Loving someone doesn’t mean they magically become less annoying. It just means that, somehow, they’re still your favorite person to annoy you. 🖤
