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.

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.

You left without saying goodbye.

Not a whisper, not a word, not even a reason why.

You could have said anything, perhaps told a lie,

But it would be better than nothing, a reason not to cry.

You thought yourself a footnote in the universe,

You were the spirit of my words, every line and every verse.

You taught me how to write,

How to take these feelings to colour from black and white.

You gave me everything, mostly your time,

While I gave you love and words that sometimes rhyme.

But everything I had was simply not enough,

Such that you left me in the dark and in the rough.

I understand that I made mistakes,

But in the recesses of my mind, a pathway paves,

Looking for reasons why you walked away,

From a home built for you, a place to stay.

I want to tell you that I love you, but the words are not there,

A heart once beating with no emotion to spare.

I hope you read these words I've written,

To find all the love yet to be given.

I hope these words inspire you to think,

For your name on my chest, in permanent ink.

This chapter will never come to an end,

For it is a chapter that only you and I could mend.

I found that I dislike sweet things
To save my tolerance for you
And your self obsessed syrup of supremacy

A love letter in milk
Raspberries
Ice and sugar

A sweetness unmatched
A hint of narcissism
In watching you try to taste
the sweetness that you are

An impossible possibility
Oh holy matrimony
A constant pursuit of Fool's Gold

Day in and day out
Textbook tenacity
Personified

But you drink,
And drink,
And drink

Try,
And try,
And try

With two milkshakes a day