i slide the blade
s l o w l y
across my pale, soft skin.
it burns,
i don’t smile.
but it’s satisfying to watch
the blood pool in beads.
it hurts.
but it doesn’t hurt as much
as the pain i caused you today.
so i do it again.

i wish you were here
so i could tell you everything
without trying to make it sound okay.
just talk,
about things that matter
and things that don’t.
about why the sky feels too far away today
or how i’m tired for no reason.
i think if you were here,
the words would come easier.
or maybe i wouldn’t need so many.

there’s a difference
between loving someone
and being in love with them.

i know that now.
because i love you,
in the way that feels steady,
in the way i’d hold your hand through anything,
in the way you live in my days
without needing to try.

but i am also in love with you.
and that’s different.

that’s why i think of you
when my legs ache
and my chest burns
and i want to quit,
because once,
you said pain means progress.
and somehow, that stayed.

it’s why your laugh feels like sunlight.
why the shape of your name
sits softly in the back of my throat
when i’m too shy to say it.
why i memorize your voice
like it’s the only music
i’ll ever need to hear again.

being in love means
i don’t just want you near me,
i want to be seen by you.
known by you.
still wanted anyway.

and that’s what scares me.
not the loving,
but how deeply i feel it.
how much i want to deserve it.
how quiet the ache gets
when you say my name
like i’ve never been too much.

there’s a difference.
and i know it
because i love you,
and i am in love with you.

and that truth
doesn’t hurt
quite like it used to.

you told me “pain means progress,”
and now i hear you
in the ache of every muscle,
in the quiet burn that comes after trying.

not because we worked out together,
but because you said it once,
like it was nothing,
and it stayed.

and now,
when i run farther than i want to,
or breathe through the hurt,
i think of you.

not in some distant way.
you’re here.
you’re mine.
you’re the reason i don’t give up
even when it stings.

and maybe the idea is a little twisted,
but it reminds me that loving you
makes me stronger,
even if it hurts.