It’s often said that men must stay strong through even their darkest battles. But what’s forgotten is that strength still lives in hands that tremble when reaching out for help. Women are told to remain soft, as if softness alone could prevent pain. Yet, when forced to pretend they aren’t breaking, time and time again, they begin to fracture, leaving behind sharp edges. Everyone hurts, even in languages they haven’t learned to speak. I’ve been offered love before, never whole, but in pieces people were willing to share. They loved the version of me that smiled easily, the one who folded herself small to fit neatly into their comfort zone. But I don’t fit. I never have. I test people, pull them from the safety of what they know into the wild of what they don’t. I don’t want love that arrives with a rule book. I can’t follow a checklist forged as care. I want to be truly seen. I want my scars to be tended to, without needing to be justified. I want to speak when I’m ready, and still be chosen in the silence. I want someone who stays when the hope is gone, when the quiet stretches too long, when I’m more tangled than anyone should ever be, when the walls I built to survive start to collapse. What even are humans without love? Just husks, souls trapped in bodies carrying stories no one will ever read. Screaming into a silence we’ve mistaken for normal. I don’t want a love that turns my bleeding into some symmetrical artwork to be analyzed. I want someone who sees the mess of my mind and doesn’t flinch. Someone who hears the tremble in my voice and leans in closer. I want a love that fits mine, not perfect or polished, just real. Just present. One that calms the noise I carry. I don’t want to earn love through performance. I want it returned, not earned, not bargained for, just given. Freely. Fully. Unconditionally. I need someone to hold me like I’m everything, especially in the moments I feel like nothing. That’s all I’ve ever searched for.

Hey. I’ve noticed you, like a mouse slipping quietly into the apartment of my mind, finding even the smallest, most hidden corners. I’m okay. Not the heavy kind of fine, just…managing. I’m learning, trying to be better, to ease off the obsession unless the moment truly calls for it, to hold my questions unless the air feels open. The days blur, but I’m still moving forward. The thing is, I know you could say something better, but instead, you say nothing at all. I’m keeping busy, making friends, trying to push thoughts of you to the edges of my mind. My name’s Jay. Nice to meet you, I guess. It feels like you’re always right there, close, but just beyond reach. I’ve missed you. But I can’t be the one to reach out again, not after all the times I already have. So I’ll wait. Maybe contact will never reconnect. Maybe this is where our story ends.

I crave every part of her, not just the smile she wears in daylight for the world, but the silence between her sobs when the night presses too heavy on her chest. I want the rawness in her breath when pain steals her voice, the anger she keeps caged behind her ribs, the secrets buried beneath her insistence that she’s “fine.” I want the scars she won’t name, the ones my fingers trace like prayers. The shame others turn away from when it begs to be held. The flicker of old memories in the mirror that still make her flinch. I want the parts of her even she’s afraid to love. Because real love doesn’t live on the surface, it digs deep, waits patiently in the shadows, learns the shape of locked doors and kisses bruises no one else knows exist. She’s been told she’s too much, but they only ever saw the outline of her being. I’ve memorized the weight in her voice when she lies and says, “I’m fine.” And I believe her, not the words, but the weight of the burden she carries behind them. If she let me, I’d carry it all. They love her like a still photograph, pretty, posed, and flat. But I love her like a novel, long-winded and tangled, pages missing, ink running into the margins. What I feel isn’t fleeting infatuation; it’s a quiet knowing, a deep-rooted truth. She was etched into the marrow of me long before fate ever brought us face to face. And if she runs, I’ll be sure to follow, not to catch her, but to remind her that she’s already home.

I don’t want to be a poet anymore. I’m tired of analyzing every detail, of twisting bruises into blooming flowers, of digging through wounds that are trying to heal just to extract metaphors. I’m exhausted from dressing up the pain that I feel in pretty words, pretending it might make everything okay. I used to capture constellations no one else noticed, to read love in the silence between words. I would bleed myself into pages, quiet as a mouse in the night, just to make sure no one else felt alone. But now the ink feels thick with grief. I press my pen to the page and nothing comes. The silence is softer these days, but it cuts just the same. I miss the simplicity of not needing to observe everything, not trying to translate chaos into clarity, not caring so much about the meaning hidden in every moment. Sometimes things are just messy, and that should be enough. I write and write, but if no one understands, does it even help? I bare my soul only to be wounded again. I ache to heal without having to carve it out in verse. Is the beauty of life really something words can hold, or is it only real when felt? I lie awake each night, slipping further from sanity, trying to find comfort in company, trying to make friends just to keep the demons at bay. I fight my battles alone, but is it so wrong to hope someone else’s light might help guide me through?

Maybe it’s time to give up on love, at least for now. She’s gone for good, and I’m still here, clinging to the ghost of her warmth, pretending it’s real. I tried to be soft, sweet, gentle enough to steady her trembling. I was the lover boy who left the light on just in case she came back, writing poems deep into insomnia-soaked nights, memorizing her laughter like it was something sacred. And all of it for nothing. Now I sit among the dust of who we used to be, in a bed that feels too big for my grief. I gave everything, again and again, like a fool believing that loving harder might make her stay. I never gave up, not after the breakups, not after the heartbreak, not even after the lies, because love is something you’re not supposed to give up on. Not like she did. Each time, I hoped she’d be the one who stayed. But they always go. I’m exhausted. Tired of showing my wounds to people who never cared to heal them. Tired of dreaming up futures with people who only ever rest their heads before leaving again. I feel like love’s unwanted child, tender, yearning, and constantly abandoned. It takes what little I have to offer, whispers promises it never keeps, and leaves me lonelier than before. Still, I try to be softer. Gentler. Even after she left, even after I gave her everything. And now I hear her contemplating him, the one who hurt her for a decade. What was it about him that made her stay? Why couldn’t I be given even a fraction of that devotion? I think I’m done. Someone else can carry this heart now, if they care enough to hold it right. Just know, it bruises easily, and it begs in silence. I’m tired of giving so much just to be enough, for people who never notice how much it costs to be this soft.

The selflessly selfish woman. She is a paradox in motion, love offered freely, recklessly, like an open door swinging wide for all who approach, even those who never deserved to knock. Her warmth floods the room, soft and golden, but when love is returned,when someone dares to fill her heart placed in a porcelain cup, she recoils. She’s a healer, a nurse of tender things. She knows how to soothe, how to mend the skin of others with a kiss. But when love lingers too long, when it dares to settle, it leaves her trembling. She’ll sew up his wounds with the finest thread, careful and kind, then vanish before the bleeding begins. She calls it mercy, perhaps even grace, but it’s escape by another name. She disappears without a trace, yet the truth will always follow in her shadow: it’s not the chaos she fears, but the calm. She craves the ache of love decaying, the flicker of passion burning itself out. The slow fade, like a bonfire dwindling to embers, feels safer than the steady glow of something lasting. She’ll try, so **** hard, if it’s soft, steady, and solid… but she’ll search for any crack, any reason to run. She screams that she doesn’t deserve the good. And maybe she believes it. But love, real love, was never meant to be understood. It’s felt. It’s built. And no matter how strong the walls are, if giving stops feeling like sacrifice, she’ll break them down just to run again. They call her kind. They call her brilliant. But no one notices the hollow look in her eyes. Her best version of love is always with one foot out the door, mourning things she can’t let herself want. She’s a martyr with blueprints for escape folded into the seams of her being. Her arms are empty, her hands trembling, from all the effort it takes to give what she never seems to keep. She is the selflessly selfish woman, both a curse and an art. Saving everyone she can…except her own heart.

Do you miss me, or do you just miss not having to miss me? Do you long for the way my name lingered on your lips, or for how it used to break the silence? Do you reach for the warmth of the memories we cherished together, or do you only summon them to keep the winter at bay? Do you miss how I laughed at even your silliest jokes, or is it just the comfort of being understood that you crave? Is it the echo of my voice chasing away the quiet that you miss, or simply the presence of someone who could? Did you hold my heart with a passion that sent shivers through me, or did you just hold onto my hand because you knew I wouldn’t let go? Did my love warm you from within, or was it only a place to shelter from the cold? Was it me, truly me, you wanted, with all that I am? Or was it the ease of having someone who would always be there? Tell me honestly, love. Do you miss me, or do you just miss not having to miss someone?