To Be Wanted Back

I have carried this feeling my whole life—

a wet coat across the chest,

a tightness that doesn’t loosen,

grief without a funeral.

I have been the one who reaches.

I have been the hand extended first,

the calendar maker, the bridge, the warm porch light.

I have been the lighthouse, always on—

and still, no one docks.

People say beautiful things.

I hold those words like pressed flowers

until they crumble from not being lived.

I have learned how quickly I can starve

on compliments that never become a meal.

Here is what wanting me looks like—

not theory, not poetry, not someday:

Make the plan.

Pick the day.

Press start on the game we said we’d try.

Choose the show.

Text first.

Say my name because you want to,

not because I cued the line.

Touch me because the wanting rose up in you,

not because I wrote the script.

I love like oxygen—wide, stubborn, unconditional—

and I have watched people mistake it for a trap,

or take it as a tool,

or praise it and never pick it up.

I have forgiven until my ledger turned to ash.

I have practiced Ethicism like a vow:

refusing the efficiency of cruelty,

choosing care even when it costs me.

I have handed out mercy like bread at the door

and gone to bed hungry.

Some days I believe I am an unlovable monster—

not metaphor, body:

panic laddering my throat,

heart sprinting from rooms that ask endurance,

language turning brittle when the lights are too bright.

On those nights I count every failure like coins,

and the whisper says not enough, not safe, not lovable.

Still I keep the porch light on.

Still I stack blankets on strangers.

Still I refuse to become the cold that made me.

But tonight I am telling the truth with both hands:

I cannot keep sprinting after ghosts.

I cannot build entire bridges to people

who will not take three steps toward me.

I cannot keep mistaking promises for proof.

If you want me, meet me where the road is real.

Bring your feet, not your fantasies.

Bring your presence, not your apologies.

Bring your small, ordinary yes:

a call before bed,

a walk on Tuesday,

a show we actually watch,

a body that reaches back.

Understand this is not demand;

it is dignity.

I am not asking to be worshiped—

I am asking to be chosen with action.

I do not need perfection—

I need footsteps.

If you cannot come, say so.

Do not stand in the doorway of my hope.

Do not leave your coat on my shoulders

and call it love.

I know how to stand still now.

I know how to let the bus rumble on

with empty seats and still keep mine warm.

I know how to hold out five minutes of kindness

and aim it inward without crushing.

I know hope is the only spiritual practice I can afford,

so I will practice it like breathing—

small, repeatable, honest.

I am done chasing.

I will be here, porch light steady,

fire banked, a place for real people to sit.

If you come, come as you are—

with plans you mean and hands that keep.

If you don’t, let the night take you gently.

I will not make a religion of your silence.

And if no one reaches—

I will not let that make me cruel.

I will wrap the wet coat in both palms,

set it by the hearth,

and tend the simple decency I was raised on:

a neighbor at the door, a bowl of soup,

the stubborn belief that care is still worth doing.

What I want is simple and somehow rare:

to be wanted back,

in the living tense,

where words have bodies

and love arrives with its sleeves rolled up.

Serenity lives somewhere beyond the sprint.

If you’re coming, meet me there.