𝑔𝒽𝑜𝓈𝓉𝒾𝓃𝓁𝒶𝓋𝑒𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇

i liked him since sophomore year, not loudly, just in that quiet, aching way where you memorize the shape of someone without ever hearing their voice up close.

we only ever talked in late-night glow, screens dim, eyes half‑closed, when it felt like the world belonged to just us and whatever soft thing was blooming between the lines.

i imagined whole futures in those moments, sitting on his lap like it was easy, doing his eyeliner with my hands steady only because he trusted me, messing with his hair just to hear him laugh.

i imagined cemetery dates, both of us whispering for no reason, his hoodie brushing my arm, the whole world quiet enough for me to pretend he might choose me someday.

i made a universe out of him, stitched together from half‑smiles, sleepy texts, and the way my name felt in my own chest when i wondered how he’d say it.

and then, god, i told him.

i told him in the most me way possible, with a typo, with panic, with my heart showing.

“into you,” i said, tripping straight through the truth, and he was gentle in the way boys are when they don’t want to break you but still do.

“i’m not really interested in that kind of relationship.”

and suddenly i’m in my room, lights off, “use somebody” spilling into my bones, crying so hard i’m not even sure which part hurts the most the rejection or the pieces of the future i have to bury.

i miss things that never even happened. i’m grieving moments i invented. i’m hurting over a boy who was only ever mine in a universe i built behind my eyelids.

and still god, still i want to curl up in his lap, draw wings on his eyelids, laugh about stupid things, walk with him where the world is quiet, be wanted in the soft way i wanted him.

i know it was nothing. i know it never existed. but i cared like it did, yearned like it did, loved like it could have.

i need him like oxygen. it’s pathetic, i know how my lungs forget how to work when he’s not near, how my chest tightens like it’s punishing me for missing him again.

i keep ending up at his feet, hands shaking, voice cracking, and he doesn’t even have to tell me to stay. he just looks down, cold, distant and i still stay. i’d rather be kicked by him than touched by anyone else. i’d rather bleed for him than breathe without him.

i would sell my soul if that’s what he wanted. he could tell me to crawl into the dirt and i would, just to feel his eyes on me for one more second. i’d let him break me apart if it meant he had to touch me to do it.

if i’m too much, i’ll make myself less. i’ll bite my tongue until it bleeds. i’ll quiet every piece of me that screams for him. i’ll carve myself down to the bone until i fit perfectly into the space he never made for me.

I would break every bone in my body to make you love me. And sometimes, you almost do. Some nights your hands are gentle, and your voice sounds like promise. You look at me like maybe I’m enough, and I almost believe it.

But then you disappear a week of silence, a lifetime of waiting for a message that never comes. You come back smelling like apology and want, and I let you in again. You tell me I drive you crazy. You tell me you hate me. You touch me like I’m the only one.

You say I don’t like you but your hands tell a different story. I never know which one to trust. Maybe both are true. Maybe neither.

I keep changing, rewriting myself into someone easier to love, someone quieter, smaller, less likely to make you leave. Every version of me is a translation of what I think you want.

And when you say you hate me, I still search for the word love hidden somewhere between your teeth, like maybe I just heard it wrong.

You could vanish again tomorrow and I’d still check my phone every minute, still rehearse the way I’ll forgive you when you come back. Because you will come back. You always do.

i hate you. god, i hate you. at least that’s what i tell everyone, because it’s easier to say that than admit i still wait for your name to light up my phone.

if only you could hear the way i speak about you to my letters— the ones for you but you’ll never read. i talk about you like you’re divine, like the world should’ve paused the moment you were born. your lips taste like heaven, your hands— god, your hands— they knew my skin better than i do. i pray no one else ever feels them the way i have. i know that’s selfish, but love makes me greedy, and i have always been starving for you.

we still hang out, in parks after dark, pressed against trees, the moon too shy to look. our hands brush, our words hover. you say things that make the world stop— things so beautiful i’ll never repeat them, because they’d sound wrong in my mouth.

and still, i hate you for the quiet. for not calling me pretty anymore, for not asking what i’m thinking, for not seeing me when i’m standing right there. i hate that i still dress like you might notice. i hate that i still wait for it.

i say “i hate you” because “i love you” would tear something open i can’t close again. maybe if i say it enough the words will harden into armor instead of bruise.

but then— then there’s those nights. the silent ones. the quiet walks where i almost believe you love me again. even if it’s not real, i’d take it. just to mean something to you for a little while. i tell myself i won’t read into it, but i will. you know i will. it comes too natural to me and too hard for you.

i am drawn to you like icarus to the sun, and my dear, i am not afraid to burn. because if i do, at least i can say i held heaven in my hands without ever reaching his doorstep. and i would fall at your knees every time you let me, because you look as beautiful above as you do below.

all the things i say i hate about you are the things i love most about you— your laugh, your silence, your stubbornness, the way you ruin me without trying. and maybe i’ll keep saying i hate you, again and again, until it sounds true. but between us— when it’s just me and the night and the ghosts of your touch— i still talk about you like you hung the stars yourself.

You—heavenly, my love, my religion, my cathedral, my altar, my pulse. Every breath I take belongs to you, every word I speak a quiet offering, every heartbeat a vow to honor you, to worship you, to live only for you.

When the sun spills across your golden hair, when your baby-blue eyes hold the sky, I am undone. The world stops, the air trembles, and something holy rises in me— a fire I cannot contain, a trembling awe that makes me feel I have glimpsed heaven and it is you.

I would walk through fire, descend into any shadow, smile in the face of hell itself, and brag to demons that I kissed heaven without ever falling at its doorstep.

If I could fall at your feet and find peace, I would crumble willingly, every bone a hymn, every breath a devotion, every heartbeat a prayer that my life, my soul, is yours alone.

When the end comes, when my last breath shivers and leaves me, your name will be my final prayer, your voice the only light I follow as I cross the bridge from this life to whatever waits beyond.

Even beyond time, beyond stars, beyond death, I will find my way back to you. For you are my faith, my heaven, my reason, my god, and I am nothing if not yours, eternally, devout, trembling, undone, forever worshipping the miracle that is you.

We met by the lake again The water didn’t move like it remembered like it was watching

He smiled first He always does Said something about how it’s funny to end up back here like we didn’t bury everything in these woods months ago

We walked He talked I tried not to look at him like I still loved him

On the bridge he said let’s make a bet Rock paper scissors He wins he gets a fruit roll-up I win I pick

I won And I picked him

I took his hand kissed him like a dare like I was burning a letter I never sent He kissed back too easily like he’d been waiting

Later on a rock the air thick with everything we didn’t say he said that’s what makes me a prick and I whispered through the smoke that’s why I love you

He heard me I know he did He leaned in close close enough that I could hear his pulse and said what did you say

Nothing I said just hitting my vape

And then softly carefully like a secret that might rot if left out too long he said I love you too

The world blinked For a second I thought it meant something

Then he leaned back smirked and asked did that make you feel better

And I didn’t know if he said it to make me happy or to make me stop wondering

But the wondering didn’t stop It never does

Because he’ll always be the actor knowing his lines hitting his marks making it look real

he said he did not love her. the words lingered, but she felt it in her bones. every teasing jab, every glance, every brush of arms was alive with something he could not—or would not—say. and she did not know what to do with it.

to let go would be safe, would be quiet, would be mercy for the heart that aches. to hold on is madness, hope wrapped around her like a cloak, warm and heavy, full of possibility and pain.

and so she floats between them, between what he says and what she feels, between heartbreak and the sparks of what could be. every glance, every fleeting touch, every whispered laugh becomes a question she cannot answer. and she wonders if she should stop or stay and love him quietly, secretly, even if it is only hers alone.

in algebra, she sent him a message: what are you listening to?

he replied without hesitation: piano man, billy joel. you are listening to rock your body, or the struts.

and her heart caught because he was right. because he noticed. because from behind and to the right, he saw her anyway. she typed back, yeah, the struts, and smiled, knowing he liked them too.

later, in homeroom, the poet sat backwards on a desk, laughing with the clown. the actor turned mischief into a game, scissors flashing, blade pressing twelve times to her leg, a quick cut at her wrist, a jab at her shoulder. she squealed and kicked and the room filled with their laughter.

she did not see it, but the clown did. the way the actor’s scowl broke open, the way his grin spread wide, unrestrained, like he was twelve years old and the world was still soft.

that night, she wrote to the clown in disbelief: what do you mean you have never seen him smile that much? the clown swore it true: he never lets anyone close, never plays like that, except with his partners.

and the poet kicked her feet beneath the blankets, giddy and undone, her heart racing with the maybe of it all.

yet when asked, do you still like her? the actor said, no.

Last night I followed you into the park our first world beyond the walls of school and it felt as though the night itself was conspiring to write us together

I told you I feared spiders and you brushed the webs away your hands gentle with the path as though you were making room for me to exist beside you

We stumbled on a hut hidden in the dark I whistled and ran and you ran after me with that same careless smirk that makes my heart unravel no script could have written it better

When we came out of the trail our hands found each other without thought and for a moment I believed in forever until I laughed and said you know this looks bad if your friends see us and you let go but my hand still reached for yours in silence aching to stay intertwined

Beneath the overpass I hummed hallelujah you asked if I was in choir I said no and you told me I should be as if you knew how to turn the simplest words into eternity

Later you lay on the ramp telling me the worst of yourself yet the moon betrayed you painting you into something holy arms crossed one leg bent more perfect than you will ever believe

You said you do not swing so I let the chains carry me alone but all the while I wished you could hear how my heart moved with each quiet push of the earth

Upon the stage my trembling hands betrayed, My voice grew faint, my eyes could not be brave, In Choir’s embrace I hid where music played, Yet feared the silence that a cracked note gave.

Though friends proclaimed my song a seraph’s art, Alone I dared not let the melody rise, For fragile was the courage of my heart, And heavy was the weight of watching eyes.

So guard became the kingdom of my grace, Where flags like prayers ascended to the sky, Where rhythm held me in its soft embrace, And none could hear the voice I kept nearby.

she loves him. she loves him and it is a quiet ache, a flutter in her chest that rises and falls like the pause between heartbeats. every hallway, every classroom, every brush of shoulders—she feels it, notices it, treasures it, and wishes she could tell him, wishes she could let him know how much he lingers in her thoughts.

they sit together at the show, side by side, hands almost touching, and she wants to reach, wants to speak, wants to let him know, but the words stay trapped in her chest. i wish i could love you the way i want to, freely, without fear, without restraint… and the longing twists, sweet and painful, in the quiet of her mind.

they walk together in the halls, laughing with friends, exchanging glances, and every moment feels like a heartbeat suspended—so close, so full of possibility, yet just out of reach. she dreams of saying something, of stepping across the invisible line that separates friends from more, but she stays quiet, hoping he might somehow see it in her eyes.

they will go to homecoming together, as friends, and she imagines the night unfolding like a delicate story, every glance and laugh carrying the weight of what she cannot say, every touch a secret she wishes she could speak aloud.

sometimes i think about beetlejuice before we ever even touched i wanted to take his hand so badly but didn’t… just sat there pretending not to tremble from how much i wanted to… i even made our friend switch seats so i could sit next to him like a tiny victory could mean anything

and then when i finally got close to what i thought i wanted i ruined it too much too fast i wish he knew i’m softer than that slower than that i wish he could’ve seen how i might’ve loved him in stolen glances in quiet blushes in whispers that almost touch the skin instead of overwhelming everything

i don’t regret the three days i don’t regret the three years before them i don’t regret memorizing the way he hides his smile behind his hand how his eyes shimmer like the sky on a perfect summer day how he props his head like an invisible artist is sketching him

i just wish i’d been brave enough to show him the slow kind of love the patient kind the kind that doesn’t burn out before it even begins

and i still love him… in stolen glances soft looks quiet moments even when people are around and i have to remind myself if those mights and maybes ever come true to be gentle… to move like i’m already staying like i’m not going anywhere

i think about how i came in too fast, too much, like i didn’t know how to hold back after wanting you for so long. and i regret that, i regret not showing you the quiet part of me first, the part that lingers instead of overwhelms. but i don’t regret what we had, even if it was only for a blink. even if it was messy.

because i still catch myself remembering the little things—the way you rest your head on your hand like some kind of accidental portrait, the way your smile looks like you’re in on a secret no one else knows, the way your eyes literally light up when someone mentions something you care about. those are the pieces of you that stuck to me.