I give the usual lie. Spiders, or heights. Something small, safe, and disposable. A normal answer to fit a normal girl. I bury the real truth in the dark, hoping if I pretend it isn’t there, it might dissolve.
But you want to get closer.
And the closer you get, the more the mask begins to slip. You start to see the monster I try so hard to hide. You start to understand why loving me is a battlefield.
You see how I dissect the quiet spaces between your words, overthinking the sharp, sudden shift in your tone.
You see the humiliation in my eyes when I beg for the reassurance I so desperately need, only to recoil in shame the moment you give it.
You watch me fracture over a last minute change of plans, spiral into a panic you will never fully understand.
Because to you, it’s just a rescheduled dinner.
To me, it’s the first quiet step of you leaving.
Do you hate me?
Did I do something wrong?
Am I finally the burden I always feared I’d be?
That is the cruelest part of this design. Until you knew me, all you saw was the sun. But the second the clouds roll in, the second the mask cracks and the real, terrified me looks out at you...
You do exactly what the others did.
You turn your back, and leave me alone with the monster again.
But he hated himself with a violence I was entirely unprepared for, and there is no out loving a graveyard.
No matter how gently I held him, his hands were always digging inward, clawing for the parts of himself he wanted to erase.
I mistook his war for a rescue mission. I thought if I loved him loudly enough that if I pressed my mouth to his scars like they were holy texts, that my warmth could trick him into staying.
I thought if I stood bare handed between him and his ghosts, he would finally choose life.
And in choosing life, he would choose me.
But you cannot throw a lifeline to someone who is actively tying the anchor to their own ankles.
A person drowning in their own reflection doesn't see the shore; they only see the deep.
So he loved me the only way he knew how; in fragments. In breathless apologies and promises spoken from the same mouth he used to tear himself apart.
He would hold me like I was the only solid thing in his universe, and then, without a sound, evaporate into his own darkness. I’ve spent years starving in the space between being adored and being abandoned, wondering how a person could make me feel like a goddess and a ghost in the exact same breath.
Love wasn't the villain here. I saw the tenderness in his eyes when the world finally loosened its grasp, the kind of quiet, aching devotion that ruins you for anyone else.
But love doesn’t get a vote when self destruction runs the trial.
That is the quiet, rotting grief of loving someone who cannot bear the sound of their own name.
They will hand you a flower with one hand while burning the entire forest down with the other.
They will look at your bleeding heart, swear on their life they never meant to hurt you, and they will mean it.
They will mean it with everything they have left.
And yet, their sincerity will not stop you from bleeding out on the floor.
He loved me. I will carry that truth to my grave. But he hated himself more.
And in the end, he let the hatred win, leaving me to mourn a man who was still standing right in front of me.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be loved the way I love—the way I obsess, the way I care, the way I look at them, the way I wonder, the way I almost worship.
I need to hear your velvet-voice in my ear, sighs of longing relief bitten into my shoulder.
Sometimes gentle, sometimes rough.
I need you in every capacity.
Kisses on my collarbones, forehead and lips.
Begging for your mercy.
Whimpering for more of you.
My appetite for you is voracious.
Sealing our love with tongues and bodies.
Flesh to flesh.
Heart to heart.
Soul to soul.
I want the softness of your breath, slurps of your tongue, the heat of your moans injected into my veins for you are my gentle fallen ruin.
I want to worship at your feet.
Hushed voices, bodies held tight.
All consuming, until our bodies are limp.
I need you, I want you.
~bleeding in the midnight drafts
So I actually revisited this poem and rewrote it the other day.... > The reason I went back is because of this blog, I have been going thru all of my old journals and such to share my thoughts and writings. Any who, here is the updated version. I think it is a lot more cohesive, but also conveys more of the feelings i was going for originally back in 2017, when I originally wrote this piece.
~~~~~~~~
I want you, so completely.
You have spoken such gentle, beautiful things to me, and it makes me want to undo every defense I’ve ever built.
I want to lay my soul bare before you, without any armor, because I trust you with all that I am.
I am here, entirely yours, craving a connection that is quiet, pure, and real.
Please, just look at me. See me.
Let me feel the safety of your hands and the quiet reassurance of your lips against my skin.
I need to hear your velvet voice, soft and close in the dark, whispering the words that make me feel safe enough to fall.
Hold me through my fears.
Be the gentle calm I need, or the fierce embrace that keeps me from breaking.
I just need you. In every way a person can need another.
I want to feel the soft press of your forehead against mine, to feel our breaths mingle, and to know that I don't have to carry the weight of the world alone anymore.
My heart is so hungry for you.
Let’s just stay here, held tight against each other, heart to heart and soul to soul, until the rest of the world fades into nothing.
My therapist told me:
Adult friendships need patience, not pressure.
People disappear sometimes, not because they don't care, but because life asks more of them than they can explain.
Silence can be survival.
Distance can be healing.
Before assuming you've been forgotten, choose kindness over conclusions.
Reach out softly, connection often returns when met with grace.
amandla
izzy806
gracieabrams
andulkaphoto
