I still think about what I tolerated

Dear Delyara, More than the event itself, I still think about the version of me who tolerated it. The explanations I accepted. The silence I stayed inside. The hunger I renamed as love. The confusion I called patience. The amount of myself I set aside because I thought wanting more would make me unreasonable. That is what still hurts some nights. Not just that it happened. That I lived inside it and did not leave sooner. I know I need compassion for that person. I don’t always have it.