A POET MAYBE?

The geography of my chest is just a series of fault lines waiting for the next tremor.

But the cage you build for someone else always takes the exact shape of your own heart. It reveals so much about the rooms you are too afraid to enter within yourself. We tolerate so much and assign it the highest titles, but I look at the distance between what I offered and what you were capable of receiving, and I have to ask—if your version of caring requires you to close your eyes to the truth of a person just to feel safe with them, can you really call that love?

You are the only map I carry. My North Star, fixed and true...but it burns at this velocity. You are the furnace where all my shadows die, and I fear the total disappearance, the white-out of who I was before you. I've learned to love the tremor now, the dizzying altitude where the air gets thin. I’m a moth not just drawn to the flame, but grateful for the singe, because it proves the light is real, that we are real, not just a beautiful lie. There is a mirror on the back of my eyelids that only reflects your faith, your unbroken devotion, a coastline that never once changed its shape for the tide. And that loyalty, it's a kind of terrible weight. It is the only gentle hand holding a grenade. I look at your hand, open and loyal, and I want to lay everything I am into that palm. But my own shadow, my relentless thinking, is building a wall between us out of thin air. I know you trust me. I know you do. But trust has a depth, and I can't find the bottom of yours. I built this love to be a cathedral—high ceilings, stained-glass promises. I am kneeling on the cold floor, ready to live here forever, but you're still standing on the doorstep, with one foot ready to turn back. This waiting is the poison. This slow, careful pace you keep, it tells my brain the story you don't mean to tell: You aren't ready. I am not worth the risk. It drives me insane because I'm giving you my lungs, my future, my name, the reckless, bloody truth of myself—and I can't shake the feeling you’re only lending me your time. This tension is the wire I walk every single morning. I love the beautiful agony of us, I crave the storm because it proves we are alive, but this specific, quiet doubt? It is a slow leak, draining the sea right out of me. I look into your eyes and see the deep, solid ground where I long to plant my flag, but your gaze holds the question: "Are you sure you belong here?" And that question is the only knife that cuts. I hurt because I love you fiercely, and I know my commitment is a canyon deeper than yours. I’m walking a tightrope strung over forever, and my fear isn't of falling myself, but that my frantic imbalance will shake the line and send you tumbling into the dark I came from. So I build a second skin of silence, a soundproof room around the sound of my screaming heart, all to protect the one light I can’t bear to lose. I have become an archivist of the ache, preserving the wound like it's a sacred text, because the moment I confess it hurts, the moment I ask you to dim that brilliant, beautiful sun, is the moment I risk losing the only thing that makes the darkness bearable.

I crave the silence after your storm, the reckless calm, like the earth thirsts for rain yet drowns when it pours. I gasp for breath where air becomes water, and my lungs, unforgiving, fill with the sea.

I was talking to my partner over FaceTime about our long-distance relationship, and I shared how I don't feel good enough for her. She kept telling me that I am enough, but I just couldn't accept it. Then she asked if I didn't trust her, but I knew I did. I said i just don't believe in myself. That’s when she broke down in tears and said, “But there’s no ‘you’ and ‘I’—there’s just ‘us.’” In that moment, something clicked for me.

I really want to to know every single detail about you, every inch of your being, every tiny imperfection that makes you uniquely you. I'm fascinated by the way your skin crinkles when you smile, the depth of your dimples when you say something that amuses you, the tiny moles scattered across your body like constellations in the night sky. I want to study every inch of you, every curve, every contour, every freckle, every hair. I'm captivated by the way you move, the way your fingers flex when you walk, the way your legs swing with a rhythm that's all your own. I want to know everything about you, every detail, every quirk, every habit, every gesture. I'm obsessed with knowing you, with understanding you, with being able to anticipate your every move, your every thought. I want to be able to read you like a book, to know you better than you know yourself.