Too Bitter To Be Loved
This morning, I thought about how insistent humans were in transforming something so bitter and off-putting, into something so warm and inviting.
Yunior Rivas
You didn’t make it easy to approach you at first. You were sharp, bitter, and bold. You dared anyone to get close, dared anyone to even try. Many turned away, muttering that you were too much, too harsh, too spiteful to bother with.
You didn’t care. You stood firmly, as if to tell the world: I don’t need anyone. I don’t need to be loved. You were untamed, unreachable, a bitter heart better left alone.
But there was something about you. Something buried beneath all the bitterness. Something deep, complicated, impossible to ignore. We wanted to know more about you, even if we risked tasting your sting.
And so we began the process of understanding you. Not by force, but through care.
We ground through your defenses and gathered every piece of you, refusing to leave even the smallest fragment behind.
We poured unrelenting heat over every part of you. You released yourself, slowly, and finally gave us your rawest, truest self.
We brought out what you tried so hard to hide. Not by taking away from you, but by adding to your complexity. A splash of milk to lighten your load, a dash of sugar to balance your bite.
But even through it all, you never changed. You are no less yourself than you were before. The bitterness that defined you still lingers, but now it’s part of a better, greater, richer you.
You didn’t ask to be loved, but you were loved anyway. Not because you became something you weren’t, but because you let yourself be everything you are.
We always knew you were more than your bitterness. You just needed someone to stay long enough to show you.
You taught us that the most seemingly bitter hearts can carry the sweetest rewards, if only someone stays long enough to discover them.