more than anything, i need your love.
i didn’t dare to ask for it, but
your unexplained adoration slunk seamlessly
into the passing days until i let my guard down
& believed you when you said you felt
the same.

you don’t even know the half of it.
you couldn’t understand how i gave you myself
from the beginning, trusting you to be the one
not to break me, but giving you that crushing capacity
all the same.

[one night, when i confessed how much i feared losing you,
you told me,
reassuringly,
“there will be other people.”
but you only made me cry. how could you possibly feel how i feel
when you could see my future in the hands of others & i only have eyes
for you?]

i’m sorry i’m not as whole as i’d like to be.
i’m sorry for apologizing to you
instead of kissing your forehead.
i’m sorry i carved the word “worthless” onto my skin
when i was seventeen
& that you can still read it.

there will always be the loose ends,
the fragments,
pieces of myself that remain
raw & ragged & will never be
okay,
like the nervous, automatic game
played by my palms, as they strain to clutch
my naked stomach,
the moment i awake,
measuring
with practiced fingers,
confirming i have not became an excess.
“too much” used to be far less literal until
i gave my shrinking self-worth a body to
dwindle in comraderie.

i am waiting for you decide you need someone
with more skin than scar tissue.
i am waiting for you to discover i am far more empty
than full.

i am waiting for these jarring epiphanies to come to you
in a rush of suddenly,
a wave of understanding breaking over your bowed head,
the realization i am not
what you want.

if there’s one thing i know for sure,
you could walk away from me & never look back
& i would only blame myself.