Mena

I don’t know if we live again after this.

I don’t know if there’s another lifetime waiting,

another body, another chance to begin.

Maybe we rise again.

Maybe we fade into nothing.

Maybe this is it—

the only breath,

the only stretch of time the universe has ever allowed me.

But if I can guarantee just one life…

just one…

then I want to spend it with you.

Do you hear me?

Every moment, every road,

every detour and dead end—

I choose them,

as long as they take me closer to you.

I don’t care if the path is smooth,

lined with days that pass quietly like soft rivers.

And I don’t care if it’s jagged,

merciless,

paved in storms that tear skin from bone.

I will take it.

I will take it all.

Because what waits at the end—

is you.

Do you know what that means?

It means I would spend twenty more years wandering blind

if it meant stumbling into you once more.

It means I would drag every ache,

every scar,

every lonely night like chains across my back,

if it meant setting them down

at your feet.

I think about all the time I didn’t know you.

And it feels like robbery.

Like the universe kept its best secret hidden from me.

But maybe those years weren’t wasted—

maybe they were sharpening me,

preparing me,

so that when I finally found you,

I wouldn’t mistake what I was looking at.

Still—

I am greedy now.

Because one lifetime doesn’t feel like enough.

Not enough mornings to wake to your face,

not enough nights to memorize the sound of your voice

curving into sleep.

Not enough chances to tell you—

it’s you.

It’s always been you,

even when I didn’t know your name.

And yet—

if this is all I’m given,

if forever isn’t real,

then I will burn this single life like a beacon.

I will carve your name into its every corner.

I will spend every last heartbeat making up

for the ones I lost.

So if the universe asks me what I did with my time,

if history demands an answer,

if the stars bear witness—

let it be known:

I spent it with you.

No hesitation.

No regret.

I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a man

who waited too long to learn the language of his own heart.

But here it is.

You arrived in my life quietly—

not like thunder,

not like fireworks,

but like the kind of rain that soaks the earth so deeply

the ground forgets what it felt like to be dry.

And I swear,

I didn’t notice the moment it happened.

The moment my days started leaning toward you.

The moment your name became a place I rest in my mind.

The moment silence between us felt warmer than noise with anyone else.

You see,

I’ve known beautiful people before.

I’ve known laughter.

I’ve known late nights and temporary sparks.

But you…

you are the first person who made me want to be honest.

Not impressive.

Not charming.

Not the polished version of myself I show the world.

Just honest.

And that terrifies me.

Because loving you means standing here without armor.

No clever lines.

No rehearsed confidence.

Just a heart

that keeps choosing you

in ways I don’t fully understand.

It chooses you in the quiet moments.

In the songs that suddenly feel heavier.

In the way a room feels slightly emptier

when you’re not in it.

You are not a distraction.

You are a mirror.

And every time I look at you

I see the man I could be

if I stopped pretending I’m not afraid.

So if my voice ever trembles when I speak to you,

it’s because the truth is heavy.

The truth is

I didn’t plan to care about you this much.

But somewhere between your laughter

and the softness in your eyes when you think no one is looking,

my heart made a decision

before I had the courage to.

And now here I am—

holding something fragile and real

with both hands.

Not asking you for forever.

Just asking you to know

that in a world full of noise and half-truths,

my heart found something honest in you.

And once a man finds something honest,

There were two plants in my back garden.

Dry.

Thirsty.

I picked up a jug,

not too full,

and gave them just enough.

A little water, a little care—

what I thought they needed.

Then the rain came.

At first, gentle.

Almost like it was thinking about it.

Then all at once—

pouring down

like the sky had finally made up its mind.

I ran back inside,

watched from the window

jug still in my hand,

useless now.

And I laughed.

Because what were the odds?

It felt like someone was watching—

laughing with me,

at me—

as if to say:

That’s not how it’s done.

See, my dad wasn’t that kind of man.

He didn’t do “just enough.”

He watered plants like they were dying

even when they were fine.

Overdid it, always.

Soaked the soil, flooded the pots,

cursed when he saw the runoff—

but never changed.

And in that moment,

with the rain pouring heavy,

I knew.

He was there.

Doing it again.

Watering the garden

the only way he knew how.

I used to be afraid of drowning things.

Now—

I want the flowers to drown.

I want the water to run over,

to feel like he’s beside me

muttering under his breath

as the garden drinks too much.

But I miss him.

That’s the truth of it.

The part that lingers after the rain.

A garden doesn’t feel the same

without him standing in it.

Without his boots half-sinking into the mud,

without his laugh cutting through the stillness,

without him shouting for no reason

about weeds like they were personal enemies.

Everything’s still here—

the beds, the tools,

even the bent spade I know he’d swear to fix.

But it’s quieter now.

And I know it’s a cliché

to say the world feels emptier.

But it does.

It really does.

People think a garden is for order—

perfect lines, trimmed hedges,

blooms that show up when they’re supposed to.

But that was never it.

Not for me.

Not for us.

A garden was chaos.

Wet socks.

Sunburned necks.

Long silences that didn’t need filling.

It was him asking me to hold the hose

then taking it back because I was doing it wrong.

This space—

this mess of green and brown—

it’s not just plants.

It’s him.

It’s me.

It’s us.

And now

it’s just me.

And a jug of water

They keep telling me—

with their puffed-up chests

and their hand-me-down certainty—

that God is a man.

Like the universe Himself

signed his name at the bottom of some cosmic form,

checked “Male,”

and said, “That should settle it.”

And I’m supposed to nod?

Bow?

Pretend I don’t see the arrogance dripping

from the edges of their claim?

Pretend history isn’t lined

with men who mistook their loudness for holiness?

No.

Because every time someone says

“God is a man,”

I feel something inside me recoil—

like, Really?

That’s what you think the source of creation looks like?

A man?

A being shaped like the same bodies

that have burned worlds down

and called it leadership?

I can’t fathom it.

Not when everything divine I’ve ever known

has worn the face of a woman.

Maybe that’s why I believe

God is a woman.

Not because I need her to be,

but because the math makes sense.

Creation requires patience.

Divinity requires compassion.

And miracles—

real miracles—

require someone who knows

how to stretch a single heartbeat

into a future.

And look—

even if God is a man,

let’s be honest for a moment.

He saw what men can do.

The destruction.

The ego.

The hunger for dominance

disguised as destiny.

He saw the world bruised

under the weight of men

who mistake fear for respect.

So what did He do?

He handed his child—

the one meant to bring light,

the one meant to turn the world right-side up—

to a woman.

Not to a throne.

Not to a soldier.

Not to a man clamoring for power.

But to a woman.

Because a woman knows how to protect

without possessing.

How to carry something fragile

without shattering herself.

How to survive the unspeakable

and still love

with a gentleness strong enough

to shame the sky.

And yet—

somehow,

we’re still arguing

about whether God could be a woman.

As if it’s impossible

for God to look like the ones

who have stitched this world back together

time and time again

with nothing but their bare hands,

their breaking hearts,

and their unshakable belief

that tomorrow can be better.

As if divinity couldn’t live

in the curve of a hip

or the edge of a voice

that says no more

and means it.

I get angry,

because the insistence that God is a man

sounds less like theology

and more like insecurity.

A fear that if God could be a woman,

then maybe women are closer to heaven

than men ever dared imagine.

Maybe God placed His—

or Her—

or Their—

child in the arms of a woman

because women have always known

how to shelter the sacred

from the storms men create.

Maybe the miracle wasn’t just the birth.

Maybe the miracle

was God choosing a woman

to hold the future

because no man on earth

was capable of carrying it.

So tell me again—

go on—

tell me why God must be a man.

Say it with your full chest this time,

and try not to tremble

beneath the weight of your own doubt.

Because the truth is this:

If you want to see the divine,

really see it—

go find the nearest woman

who’s been through hell

and still knows how to love.

Look into her eyes

and tell me

you don’t see God there.

Tell me you don’t feel the holy

rising in her bones.

Tell me you don’t hear heaven

when she speaks.

I came home on a Wednesday—

the kind of day that forgets its own name

and leans heavy on your shoulders anyway.

Turned the key,

heard the click,

and the house paused…

like it expected you to walk in first.

The piano was the first to tell the truth.

Once warm with your hands—

those late-night, half-finished songs

you said you’d complete “tomorrow”—

its keys sat closed,

cold as a mouth that’s lost its favorite voice.

I swear the dust was spelling out your silence

letter by letter.

Then the living room—

everything in place,

but shifted.

Not moved…

just missing the gravity of you.

Your sweater wasn’t on the back of the chair.

Your mug wasn’t half-full,

still warming the air with your leaving.

The room felt like a photograph

where someone’s been carefully cut out—

the edges too clean,

the meaning too ruined.

The bed told on me next.

Unmade,

but not in the way that comes from two bodies

wrestling through dreams together.

Just a single restless shape,

my shape,

curling around an absence

that has learned how to sleep beside me

even when I don’t want company.

In the kitchen,

the fridge hummed its lonely hymn.

Milk nearing expiration,

as if time itself had grown tired of waiting for you

to come home and drink it.

Vegetables slumping in their drawers

like they’ve finally accepted

you won’t roll up your sleeves

and turn them into something better.

Everything edible

leaning toward gone—

just like everything else.

And that’s when it hit me.

This wasn’t the house changing.

This wasn’t some slow rearrangement of objects

or dust

or time.

It was you.

Not here.

Not walking in behind me.

Not humming that tune you never finished.

Not saying my name in that way

that made even Wednesdays feel bearable.

Loss, I realized,

is a chair still pulled out from the table

waiting for someone

who will never sit in it again.

Everything’s different now—

because the world is missing you,

and I’m the one who has to live

White.

The colour they paint the walls with

when they want the room to feel

safe.

Neutral.

Unthreatening.

Like a voice that doesn’t speak too loud,

or a dream that doesn’t take up too much space.

White—

the default setting.

The blank page every story is supposed to start on,

even if your story began somewhere else,

in colours too bright to forget.

They say white goes with everything.

But what they mean is:

everything must find a way

to go with white.

Blend in.

Tone down.

Bleach out the parts that don’t match

the quiet hum of the background.

I learned young

how to fold myself small,

how to tuck the loud colours of my tongue

into the lining of my teeth,

how to smile in monochrome

so the world would say:

Yes. You belong here.

Because belonging, they tell me,

looks a lot like absence—

like standing still enough

that no one notices the edges of you.

White is the snow that hushes a whole city,

draping every rooftop

in an identical silence.

Beautiful, sure,

but only if you forget

that under the softness

is a cold that bites.

And I—

I am tired of biting myself.

Tired of sanding my shape

against a colour that asks for nothing

yet takes everything.

Tired of mistaking uniformity

for unity.

So here’s my rebellion:

I will not disappear.

I will not press my palette

into the margins of this canvas.

Let the white learn to stand beside

the neon, the earth tones, the bruised blues,

the colours that refuse to hush.

Maybe fitting in

shouldn’t mean fading out.

Maybe the truth is this:

White is only “pure”

because someone decided

emptiness was holiness.

But I am not empty.

And I am not here to be holy.

I am here to be seen—

in every colour they told me

was too much.

And if that means the white walls

crack a little,

shift a little,

learn how to hold a brighter world—

Then let them.

They were never meant

She is fire—

not a candle, not a comfort,

but the kind that consumes.

She is the match that doesn’t wait for your permission,

the spark that bites through silence

and makes gods remember fear.

She moves like heat through steel—

soft, unstoppable,

a whisper that melts everything pretending to be strong.

She does not burn to please you.

She burns because she must.

Because creation has always started

with destruction.

She is the ache before dawn,

the scream beneath calm,

the reason even ashes dare to glow.

Touch her—

and you’ll learn what it means

to be undone beautifully.

She is fire.

And when she comes,

the world either learns to shine—

The sky’s still undecided.

Every morning it wakes up and shrugs.

I get it.

I’ve been doing the same.

The coffee tastes like the inside of a clock —

bitter, metallic,

a little too aware of time.

I drink it anyway,

because ritual feels close enough to purpose.

There’s a plant on the windowsill that stopped trying months ago.

I keep watering it out of habit.

It keeps pretending to die slowly,

and somehow that feels fair.

The news hums in the background,

a low electric sadness.

I mute it but the silence hums louder.

Everything’s too much or nothing at all.

There’s no middle anymore.

I scroll for an hour

just to find something that doesn’t make me feel like I’m missing something.

Never do.

The world keeps clapping for itself

and I just watch from the doorway,

hands in my pockets,

pretending I forgot the rhythm.

People talk about peace like it’s a product.

“Be present,” they say,

as if presence were a coupon you could cash in

for a better version of your own mind.

I keep waiting for the urge to want something again.

For that spark that used to make the world look slightly less static.

But mostly I just drift.

Between tabs,

between thoughts,

between versions of myself I don’t remember choosing.

The mirror’s honest but not cruel.

It just looks back,

quietly tired.

Like it’s seen this all before

and knows it’ll see it again.

Outside, the streetlights buzz.

Little artificial suns trying to convince the dark

that it’s temporary.

It’s not.

Not really.

I think about all the times I said “soon”

and wonder when soon became code for “never.”

But I can’t be arsed to untangle it.

Maybe meaning’s overrated.

Maybe it’s fine to just sit in the static

and let the hum have me.

So yeah.

The sky’s still undecided.

And I think, maybe,

You ask me how I’ve been.

And I want to say — fine.

But that’s the default, the canned response,

the elevator music of emotion,

and I’ve always been more of a symphony kind of person.

You say,

“How do you feel?”

And I say,

“I don’t know — it’s not on paper yet.”

Because that’s the thing, doc —

I can’t know how I feel

until it’s bleeding through ink,

until it’s been translated into something

with a title and a typo.

Until the words catch up with the ache.

But lately,

the pen’s been heavy.

The page has been cold.

And my head?

My head’s like a traffic jam at rush hour —

thoughts honking,

feelings stalled,

everyone waiting for someone to move.

I used to spill myself out like a confession.

Now I’m stuck at the first word.

Writer’s block, you call it.

But I think it’s more like

human block.

Emotion block.

Living block.

Because every time I try to write,

I end up tracing the edges of something

too big for language —

like trying to fold the ocean into an envelope.

And every time I don’t write,

it feels like I’m disappearing.

Like I only exist in past tense.

You ask me to talk.

I want to —

God, I want to —

but I don’t speak “spoken.”

I speak in margins,

in metaphors,

in maybe-if-I-write-this-down-I’ll-understand-it.

So, doc,

when you say, “Tell me how you feel,”

what I want to say is —

I don’t know yet.

I’m still editing.

The words aren’t ready to live outside of me.

And maybe one day I’ll find the sentence

that unlocks the silence,

the line break that lets me breathe again.

But until then —

please understand —

it’s not that I don’t want to talk.

It’s just that the story

They call me the destroyer.

The end. The shadow that walks in human skin.

But have you ever asked why I come?

Do you think I delight in ruin,

that fire and ash are my truest desires?

No. They are the inevitable consequence,

the echo of a world that has chosen fracture over harmony.

I am not your enemy.

I am your mirror.

Look at me—

I am born from your wars, your greed,

your whispered cruelties at the dinner table.

I am the fruit of centuries sown in hatred.

And yet you curse me,

as though I am not your own child.

Do you not feel the same hunger I feel?

The yearning to end suffering,

to burn the old sickness away,

to wipe the slate clean so that at last

the innocent might breathe?

I walk among you,

and I see the mother holding her dead son,

the refugee turned away at the border,

the worker bent until his spine breaks.

Tell me—where was your God then?

And so I ask:

if I bring down the towers of the mighty,

if I tear the crowns from their blood-soaked heads,

if I scatter the bones of those who feasted on your labor—

am I the monster,

or am I the justice you secretly long for?

You will weep for me,

because you will recognize me.

Not as a devil with horns,

but as the last voice that dares to say aloud

what your trembling hearts have always known:

The world must end

Twelve months.

A whole damn year without drinking.

And I’ll be honest with you—

I didn’t think I’d make it past the first week.

Back then, every day felt like pulling glass out of my skin.

My body screamed for it,

my head begged for it,

and my heart—

my heart just wanted the noise to stop.

I thought alcohol was silence.

I thought alcohol was comfort.

Turns out it was a thief

that kept stealing pieces of me

until I couldn’t recognize the person in the mirror.

So I quit.

Not gracefully, not heroically—

I quit because I was dying in slow motion.

And in those first months,

I grieved.

I grieved the version of me that thought I needed a drink to laugh,

to love,

to be seen.

I grieved the nights I don’t even remember,

the people I hurt who still don’t look me in the eye,

the memories I can’t get back.

And it was ugly.

It was lonely.

It was every demon in my chest

clawing their way out.

But here I am.

One year later.

Still raw.

Still flawed.

But alive.

I don’t wake up in shame anymore.

I don’t check my phone with that pit in my stomach,

wondering what I said,

what I ruined.

I don’t lose whole days to blackouts anymore.

I’m learning who I am without the crutch,

without the mask,

without the poison.

And you know what?

I kind of like that person.

Scars and all.

So yeah,

it’s been twelve months.

And I’m not cured.

I’m not perfect.

But today, I’m sober.

And for me—

I walk in circles,

feet tracing maps no one ever drew,

roads folding back into themselves

like a question that forgot its own answer.

The signs—

they speak a language I can’t translate.

Arrows pointing everywhere,

or nowhere,

depending on how hungry the sky is for direction.

I am lost.

Not just where am I lost,

but who am I lost.

The kind of lost

that weighs more than silence,

that hums louder than a city at 3 a.m.

People pass me like shadows

wearing faces,

their laughter sharp as glass,

their certainty a blade I cannot hold.

I want to borrow their compass,

but even compasses spin wild

when the magnet is broken.

They say:

“Follow your heart.”

But my heart is a hallway

lined with locked doors.

I jiggle every handle—

none of them open.

They say:

“You’ll find yourself.”

But no one tells you

finding yourself

isn’t like finding keys on the kitchen table.

It’s more like stumbling into a mirror

and realizing the reflection is still searching.

So here I am,

arms outstretched in the fog,

not for rescue,

but for proof.

Proof that even lost things

still move,

still breathe,

still make sound against the silence.

And maybe—

maybe being lost

isn’t failure,

but freedom.

Because when you don’t know where you are,

you can become anything.

Every wrong turn

is just a story waiting to be named.

So I keep walking,

circle after circle,

until the map stops mattering,

until lost feels less like missing

don’t look at me like I’m nothing.

I swear to you,

I am the devil.

Not the grand one with fire,

not the crowned king of Hell—

I am smaller,

I am uglier,

but I am him.

I promise.

Every word I choke back

is a sin with my name on it.

Every silence I carry

rots into black smoke inside me.

Can’t you smell it?

Can’t you see it leaking out of my eyes?

I know I don’t look like much—

just a shadow in your corner,

a trembling jaw,

a bitten tongue—

but that’s where I live.

That’s where I ruin you.

Please believe me.

I am not gentle.

I am not harmless.

I am the devil you made

when you buried me alive.

And when I break—

(and I will break)

you’ll see.

You’ll see.

I wish you were here.

Not just here like arms-length, reach-out, take-my-hand kind of here.

But here —

like 2am binge-watch, wrapped-in-a-blanket, “one more episode” kind of here.

The kind of here where we both know the show is trash,

but it’s the ritual that matters.

The eye-rolls.

The gasps.

The commentary.

The shared silence between plot twists.

I miss the way you talk about your interests

like the whole world disappears when you do.

Like you’re lecturing a room full of ghosts

and I’m the only one lucky enough to see them.

The way your hands get involved,

like your heart can’t sit still.

Like your words need motion to survive.

I miss how you sing in the shower —

full-hearted.

Unapologetic.

And how your voice cuts off immediately

when you realize someone’s in the kitchen,

and you peek out —

wide-eyed,

like a deer caught mid-chorus,

like you forgot you weren’t alone in the world.

You always laugh after that.

So do I.

God, I miss that laugh.

Every day I walk past our coffee shop.

Our coffee shop —

the one with the cute little menu holders on the table,

where we always fought over who’d pay,

even though it was your turn.

Again.

The cafe where I always knew your order,

but always got mine wrong —

and you’d fix it before I could even speak.

That place is still there.

Still smells like cinnamon and burnt espresso.

Still has that couple in the back who always seem to be breaking up.

And I smile —

not because I’m happy,

but because I remember.

And that’s the closest I get to you these days.

Distance is a thief.

It doesn’t just take your hand from mine.

It steals the subtle.

The ordinary.

The everyday magic that made us

an us.

I don’t need a grand reunion.

Not fireworks.

Not fate.

Just one night.

One episode.

One walk to the coffee shop.

Your voice behind the shower curtain,

Out loud and all mine.

Memory is that sticky thing

under your fingernail

you can’t quite scrape off.

It’s the smell of your ex’s shampoo

still clinging to your pillowcase

three months after they left

with your dignity and your favorite hoodie.

It’s the way your gut twists

when someone laughs

exactly like your dead father,

and for one second

you forget he’s ash

scattered in the grass,

under a tree people have forgotten.

Memory is that song you hate

because it reminds you of

how you cried in the Arby’s parking lot

eating curly fries like they could

soak up the ache

in your chest.

It’s drunk texts you never sent

but still read

in the drafts folder at 3:17 a.m.—

just to feel something

gross and real and sharp.

Memory doesn’t knock.

It barges in,

muddy boots, bad breath,

pulls up a chair,

and starts talking about

the time you threw up at prom

or how your dad

never once said he was proud

but always asked

why you didn’t try harder.

Memory is that half-healed scab

you keep picking

because pain is easier to control

than forgetting.

It’s bitter.

It’s beautiful.

It’s bile and sugar and

that weird aftertaste of nostalgia

that makes you want to gag

and cry

and laugh

and text someone you shouldn’t.

It smells like cigarette smoke

and old pizza boxes

and her skin.

God,

you swore you’d forget her skin.

But memory’s not a poet.

It’s not pretty.

It’s not clean.

It’s a mess.

It’s clogged drains,

teeth you should’ve brushed,

and voicemails from people

who don’t call anymore.

It’s the lump in your throat

when you hear your childhood dog’s name

and realize you haven’t said it out loud

in years.

It’s finding your high school hoodie

at the bottom of a drawer

and it still fits—

but you don’t.

Memory is human.

Ugly, beautiful,

flesh-and-bone human.

Flawed like acne.

Honest like a nosebleed.

It hurts like healing.

And yet—

you keep it.

All of it.

Because to forget

would be worse.

Would be nothing.

And you,

you were never nothing.

You were always this—

I didn’t step into absence.

I was swallowed by it.

A void shaped like my father—

and someone had to fill it.

Someone had to become

what he should have stayed for.

So I did.

Not because I was ready,

but because silence doesn’t raise children,

and grief doesn’t pour cereal.

Now I hold up crumbling walls

with hands that still shake

from the night he left.

I keep the ceiling from caving in

while my siblings sit

at the dining table,

chewing cereal

like the world hasn’t split open.

They don’t see the plaster dust on my shoulders.

They don’t hear the cracks spreading in my chest.

I laugh at their jokes.

Pack their lunches.

Say “You’re okay”

like it’s gospel.

Like I believe it.

Like I’m not lying.

But I lie.

I hold back tears

so they can shed theirs.

I became the dam

so they could be the flood.

And every time they scream,

I nod.

Every time they cry,

I stay quiet.

Because someone has to.

Because someone left.

Grief doesn’t ask permission.

It just passes the baton

and walks away.

And I ran with it.

Even when my legs were breaking.

Even when my back began to bend

under all the “I’m fines” I swallowed whole.

I became him

without the privilege of being angry at him.

Because anger is a luxury

when you’re raising the kids he left behind.

They call me strong.

But strength is just a name

we give to people who don’t get to fall apart.

They say I’m doing okay.

But “okay” is a costume

I wear to keep the house from collapsing.

I tuck them in

with stories I don’t believe.

Kiss foreheads

with lips that forgot how to pray.

And when they sleep—

God, when they sleep—

I let the walls breathe for a moment.

I sink into the floorboards

and become the silence

I never got to feel.

This isn’t healing.

It’s haunting.

This isn’t coping.

It’s covering a wound with more wounds.

But someone had to do it.

So I did.

I filled the hole,

and in doing so,

forgot there was ever a me

You think I speak in thunder.

You should listen closer.

I come in low pressure.

Heavy air.

Rooms that forget how to breathe.

I don’t raise my voice.

I just stay.

And that’s enough

to ruin your evening.

People say I carry something.

They don’t say it to my face,

but I hear it —

in the way they clear their throats

when I enter.

In the way they smile like umbrellas

about to snap.

You want to ask me what’s wrong.

You want a confession.

A cracked voice.

A story you can soften with your hands.

But I’m not broken.

I’m built like this.

Steel joints.

Weatherproof wiring.

Don’t hand me tissues.

You’ll cut yourself.

I never wanted to be read.

Just misinterpreted enough to be left alone.

I sharpen silence.

Wear discomfort like cologne.

I don’t need to raise walls—

you’ll build them for me

after five minutes in my presence.

You’ll say I’m cold.

Fine.

Blame the temperature.

Not the thermostat you refuse to touch.

I don’t hide.

I arrive.

But I leave space around me,

enough for you to invent the worst.

And you will.

Because something about me

makes people need to be right.

Here’s the truth,

since you’re still listening:

I don’t want to be hated.

I just want to be unreachable.

It’s not the same.

But hate

gets the job done.

And no one ever

drowns

trying to rescue