Loving someone who can’t love you back feels like being put on perpetual hold. The rejection isn’t in what’s said but in what’s not. You wait for something—some sign, some sound—that never comes. 

It’s like walking down that hallway from childhood, the one where time moves strangely. The walls papered with this heavy quiet, swallowing the sound of your own footsteps. You’re stuck between moving forward or just standing still. And you wonder: Is this love? Or is it just a way to fill the crater loneliness left behind?

To love you is to pare myself down, like trimming words from this letter. Strip away the sentences that might make you recoil, cut out the parts that speak too loudly. If I could carve myself into something smaller, quieter, maybe I’d fit into the space you’ve left for me.

I watch you. I see the way your past shapes how you touch, the way you speak so carefully, as if every word could break something. You cling to your boundaries like they’re the only thing keeping you steady. I see you brace for impact, like love is this cliff you can’t bring yourself to jump from. And I want to press into that fear, to let it soften between us, like two bodies moving through water—slow, deliberate.

But that’s not me. The love I know is reckless—diving headfirst into dark waters, chasing something wild that could split me open. You hold your breath, always expecting the crash before it even comes.

Loving you is learning not to chase the fall. It’s standing there with you, feeling the weight of what could happen but hasn’t yet. It's realizing that the thrill isn’t always in the confession or the leap. It’s in standing at the edge, side by side, realizing that waiting doesn’t have to be hollow, that it can be rich with anticipation. So when the dive finally happens, it’s not just wild—it’s wild with meaning.

That night at the spa, the air thick with eucalyptus, felt like one of those moments. You turned to me, laughing, and your eyes sparkled like you couldn’t help it. For a second, you were safe. I wanted to bottle that feeling, keep it. Is this love? It felt like it—a flicker in the quiet, a pulse of something real, a reminder that love lives in the space we make for each other, even when we don’t know what to call it.