fighting love
I have memorized the geometry of corners,
the quiet safety of being an echo, a ghost,
a silhouette passing through a crowded room.
The world only ever saw the armor I polished,
the stone-faced shield that whispered:
I am fine. I am whole. I am untouchable.
Invisible was a language I spoke fluently.
It was the only home I had ever known.
But love is an undisciplined thing.
It does not obey the boundaries of the dark.
It leaked into my quiet corners, uninvited,
forcing me to admit the one truth I buried deepest:
I want to be known. I need to be loved.
There is a burning shame in that hunger,
a vulnerability that feels like a surrender.
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To love you means dropping the heavy mask,
letting the porcelain crack and shatter at your feet.
But if I let you look at the jagged, broken pieces,
I am exposed to a world that may hate me
just for daring to love you out loud.
And the terror claws at my throat —
what if I step completely into your light,
leaving the safety of the dark behind,
and then you leave too?
If you walk away, the shadows I return to
will be colder, darker, and more hollow
than the ones I used to call a home.
I have never believed in the concept of forever.
Time is cruel, and futures are fragile things.
Yet, looking at you, I am a hypocrite.
Because I want forever to bend its rules for us.
I want forever to mean your hand in mine.
You make me want to build taller walls, to be stronger,
to fight the monsters seeping out from the dark.
Yet, when the room is loud and the weight is too heavy,
you look at me through the ruins of my mask,
and for the very first time in my life,
I realize I do not have to be the strongest person in the room.
With you, I can finally just breathe.
