I don’t like to be touched, I say.
A belief I stitched into myself not long ago.
I used to claim physical touch as my love language—
until something shifted.

I think it was control.
I wanted to decide when, how, and who,
but the weight of permission made it complicated.
How do you tell a friend—
a friend whose love is expressed in the casual brush of an arm,
the absentminded squeeze of a shoulder—
that touch must be earned, requested, granted?
It felt uncomfortable, unnatural,
so instead, I let the discomfort settle in my bones
until it hardened into a rule:
I do not like to be touched.

And I was serious about it.
Loyal to my own decree.
I made it known, made it clear,
crossed my T’s, dotted my I’s,
left no room for misunderstanding.
And so the world adapted.
Hugs became waves.
My mother’s comforting hand withdrew.
My best friend no longer leaned into me.
I was content—
it was exactly what I asked for.

Until I realized the absence of touch
had hollowed something out inside me.
A loneliness that festered beneath my skin.
Still, I ignored it.
I was firm in my boundaries—
until I met you.

With you, I caved.
A brush of our legs, and I shivered.
Something thawed,
something softened,
and the weight I carried felt lighter in your presence.
It was messy,
but I clung to it, to you.

Then you left,
and with you went the comfort I had forgotten I needed.
The longing came back, sharper this time,
but now, no arms to fall into.
No shoulder to rest my head on.
I had spoken my truth so often, so passionately,
that now it had become my prison.

The last time I saw you,
you let me stay in your arms until I was ready to go.
I hadn’t been held like that—
maybe ever.
It has been almost four months since,
and I can count on two hands the number of times
I’ve been embraced since you walked away.

Tonight, for the first time since goodbye,
I hugged a pillow as I cried on the couch.
Because I cannot explain how deeply I need to feel again.
And soon, we will be reunited.
For a moment, I might get that feeling back.

But I know you are not my forever,
and soon, the loneliness will return.
Sometimes, I wish I had kept my silence.
It is my own fault no one reaches for me.
Not something worthy of tears.
But oh,
how desperately,
how achingly,
I crave to be held.

That text.
That one little text.
The one I swore I’d never send,
not after all the nights I spent
convincing myself you weren’t worth
the breaking and the bending.

But muscle memory is a stubborn thing—
your name moves like a whisper through my mind,
slipping past reason, settling in my hands,
until my thumbs betray me,
typing out a message
you’ll never care to read.

I know you won’t respond.
I know you won’t care.
I know you’ll smirk to your friends,
say I never really let go,
that I always come undone.

And maybe I do.
Maybe it’s cruel
how you let me believe
we were something more
than something to throw away.
Not even to be recycled,
just discarded—
a past you barely remember.

Yet still, I pause.
Because to not ask,
to not reach,
to not remind you I exist—
feels like cruelty too.

It’s a cruel, cruel world.
And I always thought you
were the light in it.
But the truth is,
I was the light.
I was the warmth.
I was the one who gave
until there was nothing left to take.

So I take back my hands.
I take back my name
from your lips,
my worth from your shadow.
And I let my thumbs rest—
because pressing send
would only be cruel
to me.

I have never been one to know my worth—
always measuring myself in fractions,
always finding less than whole.
But meeting you took “less”
and carved it down to nothing.

You made me feel unlovable,
a ghost in the room, a shadow at your feet.
Time and time again, you chose everyone else,
and time and time again,
I let you.
I let you because I thought I deserved nothing more.

You kept me on your own timeline,
offering crumbs, never a feast,
and I swallowed every excuse
because I thought even scraps
were something close to love.

“You shouldn’t have told her—
you probably ruined her night.”
But no, she didn’t.
You did.
You ruined my nights, my hope, my peace,
but I let you, didn’t I?
I let you every time I forgave,
every time I made excuses,
every time I prayed you’d change
only to watch you stay exactly the same.

And then—just when I swore
I could take no more—
you held my hand.
For the first time.
For the first time, your skin met mine,
and I let myself believe.

I lay beside you,
my fingers mapping the ridges of your spine,
my lips pressing against your cheek,
the scent of sunscreen tangled in your hair.
I finally heard it from your own mouth,
not from whispers, not from hopeful hearts
“I like you.”
“If things were easier, I’d pursue you.”
And I believed you.

But a week is all it took
for you to pretend none of it happened.
The slow replies.
The canceled plans.
The empty air where effort should have been.
Before, I would have smiled, said it was fine,
but now that I have felt your skin—
it is not fine.
It will never be fine again.

I told myself I wouldn’t cry over a man.
I made myself busy.
I swallowed the sadness,
tried to turn it to anger,
but anger was never strong enough
to silence the truth.

I did not weep for you.
I wept for myself.
For the girl who lost her respect,
who let herself be made so small
she forgot how to stand.

But I am standing now.
And I am not unlovable.
I deserve more than the empty space you left behind.
I would have given you the world—
and you wouldn’t have even given me dinner.

No more.
No more waiting.
No more hoping.
No more settling for less than what I deserve.
I am learning my worth.
And this time, I will not forget it.

Lately, I’ve seen a quote circling—
“I hope you get everything you wanted,
and I hope I hear nothing about it.”
People wear it like a badge, sing it like a creed,
as if silence is strength, as if distance is healing.

But I have to disagree.

I do hope you get everything you want—
but I also hope that everything you want is me.

Another quote lingers in my mind—
“Please, God, don’t let me miss him in a wedding dress.”
That, I can stand by.
I hope I am your everything,
but if I never become that,
then let me feel the weight of it,
let me grieve what I must—
and then, let me go.
Let me find the one who sees me as I see them,
who meets me in the place where love is chosen, not just felt.

But don’t let me be the last to know.

I don’t want to learn from whispers,
or a post I wasn’t meant to see.
Give me the dignity of knowing,
the respect of truth from your own lips.

So I rewrite the quote in my own way—
“I hope you get everything you wanted,
and I hope I’m the first to hear of it.”

Because the thought of finding out
that my everything has found their everything elsewhere
through a screen—
that, to me, is what’s devastating.

Maybe I think differently than most.
Maybe I am not your everything.
But I hope I hear of everything.

You call at all hours deep into the night,
I wake just to answer, though weary and worn,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.

I offer you wisdom, I soften your plight,
I listen to burdens I’ve no need to mourn—
You call at all hours deep into the night.

You argue, insisting your troubles hold might,
Proclaiming my struggles are easy, forlorn,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.

No bills to be paid, no rent set in sight,
While I toil and labor from dusk until dawn—
You call at all hours deep into the night.

My world feels so heavy, yet silent, polite,
While yours spins in dramas that vanish by morn,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.

Were we not bound by blood, I’d let go of this fight,
For love should be given, not endlessly torn
You call at all hours deep into the night,
Yet never a moment is mine in your sight.

I think we should be together for more reasons than one.
For example, my favorite songs are melodies, and you always liked to hum.
But perhaps the hum of the drum can’t close the chasm of space, so I offer another one.

I shy from touch—I shrink away,
It startles, it stings, it’s never stayed.
To be held always felt like too much,
but when your fingers intertwined with mine,
it didn’t seem to bother me much.
No, now it’s all I want,
because the thought of your hand in mine becoming a memory
is something I can’t unfeel.

Three—I like to think I’m fun, but you keep me moving,
you pull me forward, push me further, make me more.
Four—I can’t imagine another concert
without your hand in mine,
without adding another song to our story’s score.

Five—you know me better than the rest.
They say I don’t tell, but to you, I always do.
Not my own, but the whispers I swore I’d keep—
yet somehow, they slip, because with you, silence never stays.

Six—I was never the main character,
always watching from the wings.
But when I lie at your side, the world quiets,
the chaos stills,
and for once, I am real.

Seven—I never feared death,
but now the thought of our story unfinished
haunts me more than being gone.

Eight—why not try?
Would it be hard? Would it hurt? Would it take work?
Yes.
But what if it could be great?
What if it could be the greatest love story ever told?

Nine—I won’t ask again,
but I’m weary of answering the same question:
Why aren’t we already an “us”?

And finally, ten—
I could write poem after poem about you
and never seem to find the end.

How can I feel like a stranger,
Only where my blood runs deep?
Maybe it’s because home feels like you,
Even though it could never be.
Some say I should be grateful,
I should be content—
Can’t I still long for more?
Kneeling, I pray for you.