All I ever hear
is how things must go your way—
your house, your rules,
your walls to contain whatever this is.
A home, perhaps, but only if I fit
into the shape you’ve carved from stone.

Intimacy arrives when it suits you,
a visitor, unannounced,
knocking at the edges of my longing.
And dates? They bloom in the garden of your convenience,
flowers that wilt as quickly as they appear,
leaving me wondering if I am meant
to tend them alone.

And me?
I am a shadow in the corner,
waiting for you to notice the ache in my voice,
the weight of my unspoken needs
that pile up like stones at my feet.
I wonder if you see them,
if you even care to ask
why I stand here, unmoving,
while your world spins on its axis.

What do I need?
What do I want?
The questions rise like smoke,
thick and choking,
but you never inhale their meaning.
Instead, they linger in the air,
unacknowledged, unanswered—
a ghost haunting this fragile connection.

I wonder,
if I spoke louder,
would you hear me?
If I screamed, would the echo
reach the place where your heart should listen?
But no, silence has become my language,
the only words left to speak.

And so, I stand here,
in the space between your terms and my yearning,
wondering if love should feel this one-sided,
if this is how compromise dies,
drowned in the sound of your voice
and the absence of mine.