I should be better.  

I should be the man who reaches for your hand without hesitation,  
who speaks in soft tones and knows the right words,  
who doesn’t flinch when love is placed before him  
like a gift he has never deserved.  

But I am not.  

I am sharp edges and broken glass,  
a locked door with no key,  
a storm that does not know how to do anything  
but destroy what it touches.  

I love you more than life,  
but my love comes out wrong.  
It comes out in silence when you need words,  
in words when you need silence,  
in distance when you need closeness,  
in fire when you need warmth.  

I don’t know how to be gentle.  
I don’t know how to hold something precious  
without cracking it in my hands.  

You tell me I am cruel.  
That I make you feel small.  
That loving me is a wound that never quite heals.  

I want to say I don’t mean it,  
but what does that matter?  
A blade doesn’t have to mean to cut  
to make you bleed.  

And you are bleeding.  

Because of me.  

Because I don’t know how to let myself be loved  
without turning it into something ugly.  
Because I don’t know how to take your kindness  
without twisting it into something sharp  
and throwing it back at you.  

Because I am trying to ruin this before you realize  
I am already ruined.  

And yet—  
I want you to stay.  

I want you to choose me  
even as I make you hate me.  
I want you to love me  
even as I give you nothing to hold onto.  

I want you to see through the wreckage  
and find something worth saving.  

But I know better.  

I know you will leave.  
I know I will let you.  
I know I will watch you walk away  
and say nothing,  
do nothing,  
pretend it does not split me open from the inside.  

And when they ask me what happened,  
I will say—  

"I loved her."

And they will not understand  
why that was never enough.

You trace the lines of yourself like a map you don’t want to follow,

marking the places you wish were different,  
the curves you want sharper,

the softness you wish would disappear.  

You stand in front of the mirror,

tilting your head, narrowing your eyes,

as if looking hard enough will turn you into something else.  

I watch you.

I watch the war inside you.

And I want to break every mirror in this world

so you only ever see yourself through my eyes.  

Because if you did,

you would see what I see.

You would see a body sculpted from quiet chaos,

a face that rewrites beauty every time you breathe,

a shape that was never meant to fit into anything but the space it already fills.  

You would see a storm wrapped in silk,

a universe too vast to be contained by skin,

a masterpiece that does not need correcting.  

But you don’t.

You don’t, because you have been taught to measure yourself in flaws.

Taught to carve yourself down until there is nothing left but what the world wants.

Taught to shrink.

Taught to erase.

But I am here.

And I refuse to let you disappear.  

So let me show you.  

Let me show you the way your eyes hold galaxies when they catch the light just right.  

The way your skin sings beneath my hands,  

the way your lips curve like poetry before it’s even spoken.  

Let me show you the beauty in every scar,
  
every inch of flesh you’ve learned to hate,
  
every part of you that has carried you this far.  

Let me trace your body with my fingertips until you understand

this is art.

This is perfection without the lie.

This is flawless, not because it is free of imperfection,

but because it was never meant to be anything else.  

Let me love you until you have no choice but to believe it.

Until my hands rewrite every cruel thing you’ve ever told yourself.

Until you stand in front of the mirror and see what I see.  

Not a question.

Not a flaw.

Not a mistake.

But a miracle.

"What are you thinking about?" they ask.

"Nothing." I say.

Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

But nothing has a name,
 and it curls on my tongue like a prayer I am too afraid to speak.

Nothing is the weight pressing against my ribs,
 the static behind my eyes,


the hands I reach for in dreams only to wake up clawing at the empty sheets.

Nothing is the hum in my bones when the world goes quiet.


The shadow behind my every thought.


The ghost in my periphery that never fades.

I carry her like a sickness with no fever.


Like a hunger that will not break.


Like a whisper that loops and loops and loops


until I cannot tell where she ends and I begin.

And still, they ask me—
"What are you thinking about?"

And still, I say—
"Nothing."

But what they do not understand,
 what they will never understand,
 is that Nothing is constant.


Nothing is endless.

Nothing is mine,

but not yet.

Not yet.

God, not yet.

And it is unbearable.

Because Nothing is in my bloodstream.


Nothing is in my lungs.


Nothing is the pulse behind my teeth
 when I bite down too hard trying to keep her from spilling out.

Nothing is the way my words slip sideways,
breaking, bending, coming undone in all the wrong places.

Nothing is the reason I lose track of time,


the reason my thoughts tangle,


the reason I can stand in a crowded room and still feel


alone.

I could scream.

I could tear my own mind apart just to carve her out of it,
 but I know I would only find more of her buried beneath.

So I wait.

I wait.

I sit in the silence and let Nothing fill me.


I live in the space between now and someday,


where she is not yet mine,
 but will be.

And when they ask me again—


"What are you thinking about?"

I will smile.


And I will lie.

"Nothing."

I can be anyone you want,  
darling,  

I can shift, I can bend,

I can—  

I can break.

Oh, I can break.  

But right now—

right now—

right now I need to be your lover.  

Not a stranger,

not a shadow,

not a

MAYBE ONE DAY…

I need to be the breath in your lungs,

the static under your skin,

the ache in your bones when you wake up too fast and swear you felt me there.  

I was…

But time is a cruel, slow god  
and patience is a cage with rusted bars
  
and I

I

I

am losing myself inside it.  

I can see it.

I can see

US

Not in fragments, not in fleeting dreams,

not in—
  
SOMEDAY

But in a life with walls and windows and hands that don’t let go.

In a world where waiting is over and we don’t bleed for time anymore.

Where I am yours without a clock between us.  

But not yet…

NOT YET

Not yet, so I stay.
Not yet, so I hold.  
Not yet, so I swallow

the madness and let it simmer in my gut

until it kills me from the inside out.  

I do not know how to be patient when the future already belongs to me.

I do not know how to be sane when you exist in a time I cannot touch.

I do not know how to be whole when half of me is waiting for you.  

My hands shake when I write your name.
  
My thoughts slip like loose threads,
  
unraveling,

twisting,

spelling things backwards—

See?

Se?

Ees?

But they all mean the same thing.  

I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you

and you are not even mine yet.

Yet.  

Yet.  

YET..

I can be anyone you want, darling,  
I can wait, I can hold, I can burn,  
I can wear patience like a noose and call it devotion,

I can

I can

I can

BUT IT HURTS…

God, it hurts.  

But you are worth every second

I have built a shrine to you in my ribs,
lit candles behind my teeth,
burned every whispered thought like incense
and let the smoke of you fill my lungs.

But you don’t see it.
You don’t feel the weight of my hands
pressed together in silent prayer,
offering devotion to a god that does not answer.

You move like gravity,
pulling me in,
holding me just close enough
to taste what I will never touch.

I know this is not love.
Love is given, love is known, love is a bridge.
This is something else—
a ghost, a sickness, a dream that refuses to die
no matter how many times I wake up.

I have dissected every glance,
read scripture in the way you say my name,
built entire galaxies
out of the empty spaces between us.

You don’t know what it’s like
to live inside a story
that only plays in my head.

You don’t know what it’s like
to have your name carved into the marrow of my bones
where even time cannot touch it.

You don’t know what it’s like
to starve for a love that does not exist.

And still—
I keep the shrine.
I light the candles.
I kneel.

Because limerence is nothing
if not the worship of something
that was never real.

I have run barefoot through the gravel of my past,


let it tear at my soles,


let it whisper that love was a road meant only to wound me.

"I lost you."


Somewhere between the echoes and the empty spaces,


between the nights that stretched too long
 and the mornings that never brought you back.

I have sprinted through storms that cracked the sky open,


lightning lacing my ribs,


thunder pressing its heavy hands against my chest.

"I chased you."


Through rain that washed away the footprints,


through roads that led everywhere but home.

I have crawled through deserts of silence,


tongue thick with unsaid prayers,


sandpaper promises bleeding dry from my lips.

"I need you."


Not as a whisper,

but a cry.


Not as a choice,

but a gravity,

pulling me forward even when my legs don’t want to move.

And then—

there you are.


Standing at the edge of the horizon,


bathed in a light that turns pain into purpose.

"I choose you."


Because love is not just about running,


not just about wanting.


It is about choosing—again and again,


even when the road is unkind.

You are not a mirage.


Not a fleeting victory,


not a ribbon to break through and forget.

You are the breath I’ve been chasing,


the gold I have burned for,


the line I would cross again and again,


even if the journey shattered me.

Because what is struggle,


if not the proof that something is worth reaching?


What is endurance,


if not the language of love spoken in every aching muscle,


every ragged breath?

"I reach you."


At last.


At the end of every broken road,


at the edge of every impossible dream.

Let the miles stretch long,


let the night swallow the road whole—


I will keep moving.

Because you—


"I reach you."


You are the final step that makes the journey worth it.


You are the banner I break through,


the arms I collapse into,


the finish line of every dream I have ever dared to chase.

The space between us is not just miles—  
it’s the ache in my ribs when I breathe,  
the way my hands forget their purpose  
without the weight of your hips to hold.  

I am a house with no windows,  
a room where the light refuses to stay.
  
The world feels like a poorly written script—  
everyone else is laughing, but I can’t find the joke.  

I want to kiss you so badly it feels like a crime,  
like the universe has locked your lips in a glass case  
and hung a sign that says Do Not Touch.
  
But I would break every rule,  
shatter every law of physics,  
just to feel the warmth of your mouth on mine.  

I miss the way your voice wraps around my name,  
how it sounds like a prayer I didn’t know I needed.
  
I miss the way your laughter spills into the room,  
a symphony I’d trade my silence for in a heartbeat.  

I want to marry you—  
not in the way they show in movies,  
with the white dress and the perfect vows,  
but in the way that feels like coming home,  
like finding the missing piece of a puzzle  
I didn’t even know I was solving.  

Without you, the world is a grayscale film,  
a song played on a broken piano.
  
I am a shadow of myself,  
a half-finished poem  
waiting for your hands to write the ending.  

Come back to me.

Or let me come to you.
  
Let me close this distance,  
this unbearable, infinite space  
that feels like it’s swallowing me whole.  

I am not whole without you.
  
I am not anything.