My Love is a Presence

I was never here to be simply wanted. There is no rarity in this. I’ve been wanted before, in passing, in fragments, in hunger that held no hands once it was full. But I am not here for the ache of someone’s appetite. I am here to be understood. In silence. In stillness. In the parts of me I don’t always explain, and don’t need to.

I no longer unravel in the presence of uncertainty. I’ve learned to sit inside it, the way the ocean holds the moon, even when it is impossibly far away. I don’t offer love as currency to be chosen.

I give because love lives in me like breath, and when I offer it, it isn’t proof of my longing, it’s a mirror for your worth. Because you are worthy. And I don’t need to be loved back to know that’s true.

If you ever felt my softness, my body, my gaze, my presence settling over you like quiet affirmation, it’s because some part of you was already enough.

I didn’t place it there by accident. I saw you. Beyond the shield. Beyond the quiet storms. Not because I’ve always been soft, but because I once had to learn how to be.

There was a time when I was metal. Sharp, shining, loud in defense. A girl who threw arrows at anyone who stepped too close, even if they only came with love. Because protection was survival. But survival is not a way to live. So I stopped. Not because I lost my strength, but because I remembered softness is strength, and I was tired of bracing for impact that never came.

I surrendered. Not to someone else, but to the knowing that I am whole. That I can bare skin and still keep my soul. That I can give without losing. That my heart is not a battlefield or a test, it’s a place. A place you can come home to, without needing to perform your worth.

I’ve stayed in seasons longer than I should have. In conversations, in friendships, in rooms where my spirit shrank out of responsibility. Because I thought love meant staying. I thought commitment meant silence. But now, I know better.

I’ve built a home inside myself. So anyone I love — family, friends, lovers — can enter, stay, or leave gently. Safely. And I’ve learned that safety doesn’t scare people because it’s dangerous, it scares them because it’s unfamiliar. But I want to stay here. In this home I’ve become.

I’m just now learning how to stay fully and truly. Not just how to be held, but how to hold. Not just how to love, but how to keep.

I didn’t know safety could feel like this, quiet, steady, undeserved yet given. Thank you to the one who first made me feel it. I truly didn’t know it was possible