Love is what I live for.
I know—that’s a cliché.
I’m a twenty-something guy with a whole lifetime of experiences ahead of me.
But if life is about experiences,
what matters more than love?
I remember the first time a boy told me he loved me.
I remember every first “I love you.”
My body would fill with warmth,
my heart swelling
like flowers blooming from a garden I didn’t know I carried.
But I remember the goodbyes even more vividly.
I remember every:
“I love spending time with you, but this just isn’t going to work.”
Every:
“I’m not ready for anything serious.”
And I think:
With time.
With time, he’ll be ready.
With time, he’ll love me like I love him.
With time, my love will open his eyes.
With time, he’ll say what I know he feels.
But with time...
my heart just shatters again.
You see, my problem is that I love too much.
Too deeply.
Too completely.
And my brain?
My brain is wired like a house with faulty electrical
It makes me doubt everything I feel.
One minute I’m high on connection,
the next I’m spiraling over silence.
I drink to numb it
to outrun the voice that tells me I'm too much,
too intense,
too broken to be chosen.
But drinking just pulls the thread tighter.
It makes me reckless with hope.
It makes me believe things that might not be real,
and question the ones that are.
Sometimes I can’t trust my brain.
Not when my heart gets involved.
And when the two start arguing,
I get lost inside myself.
But still
If I care about you,
you will know it.
You will feel it in every word,
every silence,
every breath.
I give everything.
Even when you have nothing to offer back.
Even when I’m scraping myself off the floor just to keep showing up.
I don’t know how to not love that way.
I don’t know how to hide my heart.
And I’m told
"Let’s take this slow."
"I’m not ready yet."
"I think we could be amazing… just not right now."
So I wait.
That’s the thing
I wait.
I wait for the love to circle back.
For someone to make flowers bloom in my heart again.
I tell myself:
It will be worth it.
He will be the one.
But he isn’t.
He never is.
I am waiting for a train that never comes.
Waiting for rain in the desert.
Waiting for someone who doesn’t know how to love me back.
And I’m tired.
Tired of waiting.
Tired of sacrificing my peace just to feel worthy.
Love or not
you’re no good to me.
You’re not good for me.
Even if I understood you better than I understood myself.
The flowers in my heart?
Gone.
Wilted.
Petals scattered across a dusty floor I no longer recognize.
But I don’t blame you.
I blame myself.
Not for loving
but for letting the garden die.
For letting darkness in where roses once lived.
Because I loved those roses.
Even after I let you go,
they made me smile on the hard days.
They reminded me I could feel.
I’m not sorry I loved you.
Not sorry it overwhelmed you.
And I will never apologize for the depth of what I had to give.
Because I love.
That’s what I do.
I am a heart… with a body attached.
A soul that refuses to shrink.
Every day is a lesson.
And you
the ones I’ve loved
you are sermons.
You are reminders of who I am and what I deserve.
I won’t stop loving with my heart wide open.
Even if it scares people away.
Even if it scares me.
Because this heart is who I am.
And I’m learning… slowly
to love that person.
To trust that maybe I'm not too much.
Maybe I was just loving the wrong people.
So I will replant those flowers.
Tend to them gently.
Water them with truth, not wine.
Someday,
you will love.
Not with me,
but with someone.
And I hope when you do,
you let those flowers grow.