10. Love Comes Close​

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When love approaches too closely, 
the boy inside the man begins to tremble.

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He remembers the crushing weight of unmet need,
the shame of wanting too much,
the silence where comfort should have been. 

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He warns the man: 
“Don’t trust it.” 
“Love will hurt you again.”

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And the man listens.

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He pulls away when she reaches toward him. 
He escapes into evasion when presence is needed most.

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He ruins what he wants. 
He pushes away what he needs.

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He flinches at tenderness. 
He turns affection into threat. 
He mistrusts kisses that last too long.

He hides his longing beneath bravado. 
He buries his fear beneath anger. 
He covers his emptiness beneath bodies.

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And the man leaves first. 
Not because he doesn’t feel but because he feels too much 
and has never learned what to do with it.

 

He craves sex with the urgency of hunger 
as if pleasure could fill the emptiness he refuses to look at.

 
He comes to a woman’s body like a storm seeking land, 
taking fiercely, 
devouring the moment, 
burning hot enough to convince himself he is alive.

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But when she looks into his eyes, there is a silence. 
A distance. 
A locked door behind the pupils where no one is allowed in.

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He wants to conquer, not to connect,
release, not surrender,
the high of wanting, not the risk of being wanted back.

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His pleasure arrives like an earthquake  
violent, overwhelming, and gone too quickly.

 

Afterwards, his body turns cold. 
He feels his power in the trembling of sex.

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​He comes back. 
Not because he has changed, 
but because the boy in him remembers the girl in her 
as the only one who ever truly saw him.

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She lets him return. 
Not because she is weak,
but because the girl in her still hopes the next time he might stay.

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Their bodies greet each other like magnets with a memory  
heat rising fast, hands eager, hearts pretending there is no history.

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For a moment, they feel alive again. 
For a moment, desire looks like connection. 
For a moment, they believe this time will be different.

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But the boy has not grown. 
The girl has not healed.

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He takes her passionately but avoids her eyes. 
She holds him closely but hides her terror of loss.

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Once again, their wounds find each other more quickly than their hearts touch.

 

They try again what has already failed. 
Because there is a part of them that would rather repeat the pain 
than face the emptiness of letting go.