Too Much for Just a Friend

Maybe I was too much— too loud in a world that whispers, too present where absence feels safer, too eager where waiting kills quietly. Maybe I sent the first message because silence scared me more, because every ‘seen’ without reply felt like a door slowly closing on my chest. Maybe I asked too many questions— not because I doubted, but because I needed to know if I was real to them, or just a shadow in their day. I stayed awake, watching the clock, heart tangled in “what ifs,” praying for a sign that I mattered. But at least I was willing— willing to bleed, to break my own defenses, to hand over pieces of myself so someone could feel less alone. Because love—real love— is not neat or measured. It’s messy, reckless, a wildfire that burns both ways. And even though I knew, somewhere deep beneath the hope, that this would end— that my hands would be empty, that I’d be the one left holding memories while they walked away— I still gave all I had. Because my heart doesn’t do halfway. It either crashes or it soars. And even if it shattered later, at least for a moment— someone knew what it felt like to be loved without limits, without fear, without apology.