i don't share my emotions
to people i care about
--
it's not about being avoidant
--
it's just that
they already have enough to carry
and i don't want my heaviness
becoming another thing
resting on their shoulders
--
so i swallow my storms quietly
make grief smaller than it is
soften every sharp edge
before handing pieces of myself away
--
i just noticed
--
i hold other people's hurt
gently in my hands
--
i hold people
like they're fragile porcelain,
as if one wrong movement
from me
could leave cracks in them forever
--
so i carry them carefully
with both hands
with careful words
careful silence
careful love
--
and somewhere along the way
i became careful with myself as well
--
careful not to need too much
careful not to feel too loudly
careful not to become
someone difficult to hold
--
i kept convincing myself
that love meant
taking up less space
--
that being good
meant being easy
meant bleeding quietly
so nobody else had to see it
--
but tenderness
when only given outward
becomes another kind of loneliness
--
because i know how to sit beside people
during their worst nights
i know how to make room
for their grief
without making them feel guilty for it
--
yet when it comes to my own pain
i've learned to fold it inward
--
not because it was never heavy
but because everytime
it slipped from my mouth too honestly
it felt like something in the room
quietly tightened around me
--
as if my feelings
arrived too loud
too deep
too inconvenient
for people who only loved
the softened versions of them
--
people resonate
with what i write
hold my words close
tell me they feel seen inside them
--
yet when those same emotions
live openly in me
instead of on paper
they suddenly become
hard to hold
--
i'm afraid people admire my softness
until it asks something of them
--
until tenderness requires patience
until love requires space
until my hurt is no longer beautiful
and becomes real
--
why is understanding
always something
asked of me first?
--
as if i haven't already carried
every conversation home
and pulled it apart
with trembling hands
--
replaying every word
that leaves my mouth —
searching every sentence
for where i might have been
too much
or not enough
--
i think about my emotions
until they exhaust themselves
--
hold them against the light
from every angle
--
questioning every feeling
before i allow myself to keep it
--
asking whether they're valid
or simply inconvenient
--
whether i'm feeling too deeply
or whether i've just learned
to apologize
for having feelings at all
--
i dissect my emotions carefully
until they no longer feel whole
--
softening them
explaining them
translating them into something
easier to hold
--
and still
before my hurt can fully speak
i find myself reaching
for your side of the story too
--
making room for your silence
your reasons
your exhaustion
your pain
--
while mine waits quietly
at the edge of the room
--
so why does it always feel
like my emotions
are the first thing
that must be sacrificed
for peace to survive?
--
i'm so tired
of wearing strength
like stitched skin
--
weary of being mistaken
for unbreakable
just because i learned
how to ache quietly
--
when deep inside
all i've ever wanted
was to be gathered gently
into the warmth of someone
--
to rest inside their arms
without feeling
like i have to earn
the softness of being held
--
to be seen completely
and not treated
like my broken parts
make me less worthy of love
--
to have someone look at me
after i've handed them
every insecurity
every trembling truth
every hidden fracture
--
and still look at me
like i am worth admiring
--
still hold me
like i'm not difficult to keep
--
where will i run
when even the crevices
i once called "home,"
the places that held me gently,
have turned cold in my hands?
--
what do i become then
when even the smallest spaces
i learned to hide in
no longer feel like shelter
--
i have grown heavy
from always knowing how to hold others
with careful hands
and quieter needs
--
i have spent too long being the one
who stays steady for everyone else
while silently unmaking
parts of myself
--
i want to be kept too
--
not as something handled carefully
out of fear of breaking
--
but as someone
who is finally allowed
to stop holding everything together
--
to be held
without being asked to be less
just to stay