someone told me once that i was an all or nothing type of girl.
and they meant it as a compliment, or rather an insult
draped and disguised to look like one.
but it's true, i know this.

and i have locked onto that phrase for years and years.
because i am so afraid to love someone wrong
that i love everyone too much, maybe.
or maybe not ever at all.

i can tell you what a crush feels like, list symptoms and
cross things off on a list one by exciting, miserable
one. but i cannot write on the excitement
of the brush of someone's fingers

or the bone-rattling nerves of an across-the-room glance.
i can't remember what rejection feels like and if
you asked me, i could not properly say
that i care about that anyway.

but i am familiar with this, the anxiety and this yearning.
to talk and laugh and say out loud what was said
to me and oh, however shall i respond?
that's what i'd say.

if i had a crush, anyway. but i am a girl who just...
does things all at once or not at all, and so
i find myself terribly frightened
to feel anything at all.