I’m terrified something might actually work out for me—
terrified of the tenderness that follows,
of the way hope slips its fingers around your heart
and asks to stay.
I’m afraid of being seen
not just in pieces,
not just in the versions of myself I know how to
explain,
but in my entirety—
in the mess,
the ache,
the soft places I’ve learned to guard with silence.
Afraid someone might actually try to know me
beyond the surface of what I offer,
might sit with my contradictions long enough
to understand
that I am both longing and retreat,
both open hands and locked doors.
This fear has crept beside me for too long,
quiet and patient,
teaching me how to leave before I am left,
how to fold inward
until I am small enough to survive.
Still—
I want it to work.
Even when my instinct is to run,
even when disappearing feels safer than admitting
I want to be chosen,
that I want to be seen
and not abandoned for it.
I crave what I fear most—
love—
the kind that asks me to stay present,
the kind that does not vanish when I am complicated.
Some days I feel incapable of it,
as if my hands were never taught
how to hold something gently
without expecting it to break.
I cry when I like someone
because my body remembers before my mind does—
remembers how feeling once meant losing,
how wanting always came with a cost,
how tenderness was followed by pain
so reliably it began to feel inevitable.
I remember being harshly undone
by someone who claimed to love me,
who spoke in promises
while taking pieces of me
they never intended to return.
I learned how easy it is
to be mistaken for something consumable,
how quickly affection can turn into appetite.
I don’t want to be just another body
you reach for when loneliness lingers,
another warmth to pass night with,
another almost.
But I am terrified of being anything more—
of being known deeply enough to matter,
of becoming real in someone’s life,
of trusting that I won’t be reduced
to what I can give
or how quietly I can disappear.
So I stand here,
between wanting and fear,
between opening and hiding,
learning—slowly—
that maybe the bravest thing I can do
is stay
when something finally reaches for me
with open hands.
The Altar 