It’s been more than 5 years since I walked out of my toxic relationship, but the scars both on my body and in my heart still remain. Sometimes I wonder, if love finds me again, will it have the strength to stay after knowing the truths I carry within me?

Will he stay if I tell him about the scars left behind on my body? The half-cut nipples, the marks on my legs reminders of nights I can never erase. Will he stay if I confess that I fear touch, that I shiver when someone tries to hold me close, that even a hug can send me trembling?

Will he stay if I open up about how my past relationship destroyed the way I see intimacy? How sex, which I once thought was meant for love and connection, became something I associate with force, with violence, with pain. How I’ve never allowed anyone since then to cross those boundaries, because I can’t bear the thought of being forced again.

Will he stay if I tell him I’ve never known what it feels like to have a gentle kiss, a calm date, or an argument without raised hands and raised voices? That I’ve never dressed up freely in the clothes I love and walked into a restaurant feeling safe and cared for?

Will he stay if I admit that I know how to love deeply, but I don’t know how it feels to be loved in return without fear, without judgment, without pain? Will he stay if I tell him that I’m fragile, emotional, and carrying stories I can’t even put into words?

I don’t know.

I don’t know if someone can look at me and still see beyond the scars, beyond the broken pieces, beyond the trembling hands and the fearful heart.

But if love does find me again, I hope he will.

So I ask –
Can someone truly love me, not despite my scars, but with them? Can love stay, when the past has left me this broken?