even if i had met you earlier,
before your heart shut itself in to protect you,
you still might not have loved me.

and that's okay.

so i can't be too sad about the circumstances,
when you ask for space
or when you ask if we can slow down
but still,
i want to let you know
you're safe with me.

this isn't me saying i'll wait forever for you to heal
because i deserve to feel love too, with or without you.

this is me saying that
even if you never want to love anyone again,
you can count on me to want you to feel safe, loved, and healed.

periodically during breaks i sit down with two of my coworkers.
i forget what prompted the conversation,
but i told one of my coworkers i could tell he had never been in love before.
he asked, "how do you know if i've never said so?"

i explained it overconfidently,
"well, you've told us before when things start to get serious, you start to pull back. i think, if you've experienced love before, you wouldn't be so afraid to feel it again. but also, if you've experienced it and lost it, i think it would show in your perspectives on life, loss, and relationships."

even though i was right about him, i was probably projecting a little.

maybe never experiencing love "for real" is what keeps me open to it. and for someone else, maybe the pain of losing it is enough reason to not want it anymore.

that could never be me—

i'm not scared to get hurt if things fall through again;
i just want a love that's worth the potential heartbreak.
i don't want fear to hold me back from experiencing this thing called "love."

i could buy new clothes and dress up as somebody i still wouldn't like
i could make my bed and clean my room for the second time this week to ignore the mess still in my head
and i could do all these things to improve myself for a future i still don't have a desire to be in

i could try to cry and maybe feel like i've let things out
i could remind myself of the things i'm grateful for as if it cancelled out all the things that make me feel empty

i confide in my friends who might empathize and we could laugh it off together

but no matter what i do,
no one else will be there with me when i lay in bed trying to fall asleep to the thoughts that make me feel indifferent towards the idea of not waking up

recently i've been a better friend to myself,
accepting that i don't have to replay past situations in my head to rationalize if my actions were fair.

and when i spiral into doubt and regret i reassure myself that i don't have to repeat explanations in my head to try to convince myself that i did the right thing.

i tell myself,
i don't want to love someone
whose love you feel like you have to beg for.

i hold onto
the way your eyes light up when i call you darling,
how wide your smile looks when i kiss your cheeks,
and how soft your voice gets when you worry about me if i don't sleep well,

but the thought of losing you

makes me feel

so

afraid.

so the second you turn away i get scared i have to wake up from this dream.
and when you say there's nothing wrong i have to force myself to not worry.
and although i'm patient a chill down my spine always tells me that i'm just awaiting another letdown.

i used to want to express what you meant to me
in idioms that could reflect how deeply i felt about you,
like how you put the stars in the sky
or how i thought the sun lent you its warmth when i held you.

but when i think it over,
the words that mean a lot to me are the simple phrases
when my mom tells me to "take care" and
when my kid siblings ask to ride my back.  

so i hold you close and say "i care for you,"
because the words mean more to me than anything else i could think of.

we don't have a reason to stay in touch
so when we catch up
i say i appreciate it but
i don't say out loud that reconnecting for a moment
reminds me of how far apart we are now.

there are no hard feelings and when we talk,
you still treat me as if we aren't really strangers.

but it makes me feel regret knowing the only conversations we have and the only ones we'll have left end with

"i hope you're doing well."