Almost loved, still held.
Here’s to friendships we are grateful for but don’t talk about enough…
There are days when you sit in a room full of people and you feel yourself dissolving. Not disappearing in a poetic way, just thinning out. Like you’ve become the ghost of your own body, walking through conversations that never quite touch you. Their laughter spills across the floor but never reaches where you are. You start to wonder if anyone notices the empty chair you’ve become. In those moments, in those times, your mind turns weird. It whispers that you were built wrong. That you were designed to be almost loved, almost seen, almost held with love and tenderness. Its lowkey embarrassing to want so much of softness but only getting the outline of it anyway. And yet, even the most distorted hearts deserve care, love and tenderness. Even they deserve to be held like holding glass- so delicate- you hold it with care. Not in a dramatic way everyone claps for. Not the performative declarations. But the small, human warmth that feels like someone placing their palm against the frost on your skin and waiting, not demanding you to MELT!…just waiting. Calm. Patient.
Still, the world doesn’t always hand you over the kind of love from the people you believed would give it. That ache settles into your ribs like an unwelcome tenant. Then absurdly, almost mockingly- life sends you someone unexpected. Someone who sees the fracture lines under your smile without you tracing em’ first. Someone who catches the quiet tremble in your voice on ordinary tuesdays. Their presence doesn’t fix anything, but it rearranges the room inside you.
The friend who calls you stupid, dramatic, rolls their eyes, pretend they’re made of steel- but notices when you are missing your ex with a pouty face. Makes you watch mukbangs and searches “Mukbangs with Diet Coke” only because you like Diet Coke, and makes you get out of your spiral. Sits besides you when your inner world is collapsing but refuses to call it a collapse. The friend who downloads tumblr just to motivate you and be the first to like your post.
Maybe love isn’t the fever you thought it would be. Maybe its the small, persistent presence that refuses to leave.
People who remind you that maybe everything wasn’t as wrong as you thought, maybe some things, quietly, secretly, were a little right all along.
Thanks @speechlessparrot you were that person to me :)
