I sit in the quiet of someone else's space,
pretending my heartbeat isn't screaming.
Love—or something like it—
wraps around me like a too-tight blanket:
warm, but suffocating.
There's a part of me that always wants more:
more closeness,
more proof,
more hands that don't let go when I start shaking.
And another part that wants to vanish completely,
slip out the door
before I become too much again.
They say love is patient,
but my nerves don't wait.
My brain doesn't whisper,
"Are we okay?"
It screams,
"Get out before you're left."
"Push them away before they see the mess."
He stays.
He offers me Saturdays and softness.
But still, I wonder—
is it love,
or just kindness dressed in guilt?
They say trauma teaches you
to read absence even in presence,
to crave a touch you no longer trust,
to mourn stability
because chaos once felt like home.
I want to be loved out loud,
not hidden in the back room of someone's life.
I want the words, the claiming,
the messy, overwhelming kind—
but I also want to disappear.
I want to go home,
but home is a mind I can't escape.
Even in arms that promise they won't let go,
my body stiffens like they already have.
This is what it means
to feel everything
and understand none of it.
To mourn something you're not even sure you want
because your wounds are still screaming.
And that's what makes love so cruel—
how it can burn so brightly
and still leave you in the dark.