I pull you in, then push you away, watching my own hands undo the thing I swore I needed. Hold me tighter, no, let me go. Tell me you’ll stay, no, don’t get too close. I am the storm and the shelter, the open arms and the locked door. I do not know how to love without fearing the fall. I do not know how to be held without bracing for the hurt. Somewhere inside me, love is a flickering light, familiar and foreign all at once. I want to trust it, but trust is a language I never learned, a bridge I keep burning before I can step across. I crave love like an aching hunger, but when it’s offered, my body remembers every goodbye, every broken promise, every time forever became for now. But if you are patient, if you stand in the wreckage without running, maybe just maybe I’ll believe that love doesn’t always have to leave.