bElng mysElf

 I love you. I don’t say it just to say it, or because silence feels too heavy between us. I say it because it lives in me like breath, quiet, unnoticed sometimes, but constant. I love you not just in the moments when you smile at me, not only when you are soft, or kind, or present. I love you when you’re distant, when you’re guarded, when your eyes look away because you don’t know what to do with the gravity between us. I love you in the silences, the pauses, the hesitations in your voice. I love you even when it hurts, especially when it hurts—because pain taught me that my love isn’t shallow. It reaches places where words can’t. I love you when I’m not speaking, when I fall quiet because I can’t carry what I feel in my chest without trembling. I love you even when you don’t understand why my voice shakes, or why I turn my head away. It’s not because I don’t want to face you, it’s because I want to give you everything, and I don’t know how to do it all at once. I love you when I ...