you’re the calm in my chaos,
the steady in my storm.

words from you
feel earned

you don’t flood me with noise
but when you speak
each word carries weight
given carefully,
never lightly.

the moment
i’m asked
i say yes
because i can,
not because i want to;
but because
i have a choice,
  and at least
    this way
      i get to choose
        what happens,
          rather than be
            put in a position
              where i don’t.

i don’t want what’s handed to me.
i want what runs.
what looks at me then
looks away.
what i have to earn.

because wanting hurts less
than being handed something that never mattered.

attention means more
   when i have to work for it.
affection feels real
   when it’s rare.

i don’t want easy.
  i want to chase.
  i want to ache.
  i want to reach
and never quite touch.

because longing is safer
than pretending to be satisfied.

it’s easier to keep chasing
when you know the prize isn’t promised;
and you have to work
to even get close.

because chasing
    something real
feels better than
    catching something hollow.

i don’t want what comes easy.
if it’s handed to me, i let it go.
love without a fight
feels flat, like a song without a beat.

i want the kind of intimacy
you have to
         bleed for,
the kind you can’t reach
until you’ve
          torn off
every soft part of yourself
to prove you deserve it.

i want to chase it down.
run hard until my heart pounds
just to feel it glance back at me,
even once.

i don’t care who else offers sweetness.
    i want the silence to speak.
    i want the stillness to flinch.

maybe it’s not love.
maybe it’s just wanting to be seen
by someone who never really looks.
wanting to matter
to the one person who never needed me.

is that love?
   or am i just
      throwing myself at locked doors
   hoping one might open
if i hurt myself enough knocking.

   maybe i just want to be worth the reaching.
   maybe i want someone
   who doesn’t need me
   to choose me anyway.

i started solving equations
because they didn’t ask questions.
no why, no how come,
just: isolate x.
balance both sides.
make it neat.

in algebra,
there’s always a method.
expand the brackets,
simplify the mess.
rearrange until it makes sense.

simultaneous questions
felt easier than real ones;
two unknowns,
but at least they listened.
at least they resolved
if you followed the rules.

quadratics fall apart and still come back
to a single solution.
i envied that.

and if i got the answer wrong,
at least i could circle it,
mark where it went wrong,
and fix it.
it wouldn’t be perfect
but at least i could
correct my errors.

in maths,
there’s always a way back.

but in life,
the mistakes don’t
      show up clean.
there’s no
            neat solution,
no second chance to
              fix what’s broken.

so for now,
i’ll solve problems
that i can actually solve,
and fix the things
  i can control.

i never told you
how soft you felt
in a world that never let me rest.
how your voice
felt like a doorway
back to myself.

i wanted to say it
a thousand times
in a thousand ways
but each one
felt too loud
for something this quiet.

because i don’t want to lose
what we are
by reaching too hard
for what we could be.
being near you
even like this
feels steadier
than the best of
what i’ve known.

once,
you looked at me
like the softness
was something
you’d always known was there,
hidden in the static.

and when you told me
you believed
in the kindness
beneath my mess,
your words stayed
longer than you’ll ever know.

maybe one day
i’ll find the stillness
to say aloud
what has only lived in quiet;

that something in me
settled
every time you stayed.
not love,
not yet

just the way your presence
makes me softer
without asking me to be.

just the way your presence
makes the world
less loud
and me
less afraid.

i used to call it comfort
the way i reached for
a green that didn’t grow anything
     just softened the edges
     and blurred the ache

until fullness
     felt empty

        until the chaos
drowned itself in silence

       until even the storm
learnt to whisper

until emptiness
                felt full

i didn’t call it
escape
not then
just quiet
just something
to get through the day

but even quiet
can rot the roots

i stayed in that winter
   longer than i needed to
     numbed the ache
   until i forgot
     what it was like
   to feel anything grow

but now
green
means something else

it means rebirth,
life
pushing through
thin cracks
in dry ground

it means i don’t run
when the light comes in

that i can sit still
without reaching for a way out

that something in me
is waking up
and wants to stay