the anxiety of being loved

forever yours, from a safe distance

i knew i loved you when i realized my heart, despite knowing you weren’t here to stay, did not crumble like i had feared. instead, it understood. after all, to love is to let go, isn’t it? a paradox wrapped in tenderness, where the act of holding close means preparing to release.

i tried not to love you. i really did. i wandered, searching for others, hoping to fill the void you left behind. but, i would rather be nothing to you than everything to them. to love you, is to hold a piece of wonder in my heart, even if it’s bittersweet, even if it's fleeting. after all, things that don’t last are the most worthwhile.

yet, it’s not the ache of letting you go that terrifies me the most, no it’s the mere possibility of your love. each word of admiration you spoke for me felt like a weight pressing down on my chest–not because you put me on a pedestal and demanded that i be perfect, but because i am well aware of the chinks in my armor and i know that i am bound to fail you.

your love, untainted and unearned, felt like a spotlight i had no idea how to stand under. your gaze, once a beautiful gift, a wonder that never ceased to amaze me, became a weight, a reminder of my inadequacies.

i wanted to shrink under it, to run and hide where you couldn’t find me, where your love couldn’t reach. not because i didn’t want it, but because i didn’t know how to bear it. to be loved is to be exposed, every flaw and crack laid bare, every weakness magnified under the lens of affection. it is an unrelenting mirror, reflecting back the parts of yourself you’d rather forget.

i thought of the weight of your expectations—not because you demanded anything, but because love, even when freely given, carries an invisible price. it asks for trust, for vulnerability, for faith in a future i can’t see. and what if i falter? the burden of your hope, so quietly and earnestly placed on me, felt too great a thing to carry.

and so i stood there, trembling, wishing i could disappear into the cracks of my own inadequacies. i didn’t want your love because i knew it would demand more than i had to give. it would ask me to be brave, to believe in something i had long since stopped believing in—myself. and i couldn’t. i wouldn’t.

maybe it’s easier this way, to remain at a distance, to let your love linger as a possibility rather than a reality. because the reality of love, the weight of it, is something i’m not sure i’ll ever be ready for.