there is also the way love and attention become mirrors, reflecting not just what you show but what you hope exists inside you.

i have realized that trust is not about safety at all, it is about deciding to breathe while standing on the edge anyway.

and it’s a strange kind of courage, to hand someone the map of your past and stay still while they trace it.

sometimes the truth hits that the person you are telling is not responsible for holding your pieces intact, and the clarity is sharp enough to make you rethink what love even means.

even as you speak to someone about your needs, your boundaries, your ways of loving, there is a trembling, because you are laying bare every quiet corner of your life, every unsorted emotion, every fragment of longing. it is not a performance, not a plea, it is a question cast into the space between you and another person, an invitation to meet... See more