I know how tough I am to love. Seriously, I've been wrestling with that truth myself, looking in the mirror and feeling like I don't even know the person staring back.

There are still parts of me that are just… thorny. Sharp, unyielding, like a wild bush no one can really hug without getting pricked. Sometimes they're like rough stones, ready to tumble out and leave a bruise where a gentle touch should be.

I'm dealing with my own stuff, a heavy cloak I wear, and when I let you in, I accidentally draped a piece of it over your shoulders. It's a weight you never asked for.

I knew the risks, you know? The jagged edge of loving me, the cliff of letting you see me for who I really am. But still, I unlatched the door. Threw it wide open.

Sometimes, I wonder if that was incredibly selfish of me. To lay bare all my messy damage and still, somehow, deep down, hope you'd stay. To let you see the wreckage and then ask you to accept it, to carry a burden that's really only mine.

So, yeah, I get it. If one day, that quiet hum of you being here turns into the louder sound of you leaving, if you just admit, with a sigh, that you can't handle me anymore—I won't be mad. Not at all.

Because I love you enough to want you to have a love that's easy, that breathes freely, light and happy, without all my shadows. And I love you enough to let you go if my arms ever feel more like a cage than a home to you.