I loved with a gentle fierceness, with a tenderness that asked for nothing in return, with a kind of dedication that cannot be negotiated. I gave everything, not because it was asked, but because that’s how I am built, because my love is not something that is triggered on command or stopped by reason, but a continuous, almost dangerous current, which empties and fills me at the same time, which overturns me and reconstructs me in more and more complex forms.
I didn’t offer things, but parts of me, hours of my life, moments of silence that I refused myself so that I could give them to you. And maybe in your eyes, everything I did seemed natural, but in me, every gesture needed at least a look that understood what it means to lean so carefully towards you, without feeling bent over by my love.
And then I wondered (belatedly, but inevitably) if you would have done everything for me. If, in the mirror, I had seen not only the reflection of my effort, but also of a silent but real reciprocity. And the answer was… no. Of course not.
You may have loved with emotion, with desire, with admiration, but you never took that step completely towards me, the step in which you no longer keep any reserves, in which you are no longer afraid that you will lose yourself if you love me too much.
I wasn’t afraid. I consciously lost myself. And that’s why your answer tore me apart, not by absence, but by the fact that I knew all along that it would not come. That unsaid no, that amused smile, that hesitation, was the most honest answer you could give.
I thought that love means being there, even when you can’t anymore. That if one falls, the other catches them, doesn’t let them hit the cold floor of indifference. I lived with the illusion that, if I’d been in the middle of the storm, you would’ve come, barefoot, in the rain, to tell me that you are there, that I’m not alone. But you never came. You’ve always remained on the sidelines, safe, in your emotional comfort, analyzing, waiting, silent. And I slowly faded away in the middle of that emptiness, wondering if you ever really felt that you were needed so that I wouldn’t disappear completely.
Today, I know that love is not measured in words or promises, but in actions, in intuitive reactions, in that “it hurts me too” uttered before you get to tell something. Love is hurting the pain of the other without fully understanding it, but feeling it as a part of you. And you didn’t feel that. Not in the way I did. And I don’t blame you for what you couldn’t. I understand you. But I finally understood that just because someone doesn’t hurt you out of malice doesn’t mean they don’t hurt you.
I have regained the right to ask questions and to take silence as a no. I recognized my value not by what I give, but by how much it hurts me not to receive anything. And I don’t want to live in imbalance anymore, in unfulfilled promises, or in unilateral gestures.
I want a person who does everything for me, not because I ask them to, but because they feel that way, just like I do. A person who doesn’t force me to be the one who carries everything again, but to be there, whole, alive, giving, not as a gesture of gratitude, but as a natural reflection of love.
I don’t want to, I can’t anymore, and I don’t allow myself to entrust my life to a person who, when I asked them if they wanted us to live it together, ran away from the answer as if the question itself had been a mistake. I don’t ask to be loved anymore. I ask to be received where my love can truly belong. And I no longer want to be light in the darkness of someone who wouldn’t light even a candle for me.
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