God, I love your scent.
Forgive me.
I am speaking like a man leaning too close to his own loneliness,
like someone counting courage in empty bottles.
Your aroma does something dangerous.
It opens doors in me I keep padlocked.
One door holds the boy who once believed in love at first sight,
the other holds the man who knows love is not a lottery ticket
but a responsibility with rent due every month.
I saw you and for a second
my ribs forgot their job.
My chest became a cathedral with no priest,
just echoes.
There are two of me.
One wants to reach.
The other folds his hands and steps back,
because desire is cheap
but devotion costs a life.
I want you.
That is the simplest truth.
But I have learned that wanting a woman
and being ready for a woman
are not twins.
They are distant cousins
who don’t attend the same funerals.
So I stay away.
Not because you are not worth it,
but because you are.
On the fifth bottle I learn
that intoxication is honest.
It tells me I am not afraid of you.
I am afraid of failing you.
The beer burns,
but it does not burn like the thought
of holding something sacred
with unsteady hands.
So I sit with my longing
like a man outside a house
he cannot yet build.
And maybe that is maturity.
To admire the garden
without stepping on the flowers.
~PJNK
Feb 16
Feb 16, 2026 at 3:21 PM UTC
God, I love your scent.
Forgive me.
I am speaking like a man leaning too close to his own loneliness,
like someone counting courage in empty bottles.
Your aroma does something dangerous.
It opens doors in me I keep padlocked.
One door holds the boy who once believed in love at first sight,
the other holds the man who knows love is not a lottery ticket
but a responsibility with rent due every month.
I saw you and for a second
my ribs forgot their job.
My chest became a cathedral with no priest,
just echoes.
There are two of me.
One wants to reach.
The other folds his hands and steps back,
because desire is cheap
but devotion costs a life.
I want you.
That is the simplest truth.
But I have learned that wanting a woman
and being ready for a woman
are not twins.
They are distant cousins
who don’t attend the same funerals.
So I stay away.
Not because you are not worth it,
but because you are.
On the fifth bottle I learn
that intoxication is honest.
It tells me I am not afraid of you.
I am afraid of failing you.
The beer burns,
but it does not burn like the thought
of holding something sacred
with unsteady hands.
So I sit with my longing
like a man outside a house
he cannot yet build.
And maybe that is maturity.
To admire the garden
without stepping on the flowers.
~PJNK