when i hear the word connection

when i hear the word connection, my body tightens.

it’s immediate.

i don’t think about it—i feel it.

a kind of panic, and something heavier underneath.

wrongness.

when i hear connection, i don’t go to the best moments of my life.

i go to the feeling of reaching

and falling on my face

but no one sees it.

like i hit the ground

right when i need someone.

like sending something that mattered

and watching the silence after it stay empty.

there’s a part of me that already knows—

even if i stay open…

there will be nowhere for it to land.

and that feels confusing, because it’s not the whole truth.

i have felt connection so deep, so natural, so unmistakable

it felt like being inside my version of heaven.

with a couple people, it wasn’t effort.

it wasn’t guessing.

it wasn’t me trying to be anything.

it just… was.

and i knew, without checking, i was inside something real.

so why doesn’t that come to mind first?

why does my body go somewhere else?

i think it’s because the part of me that learned connection wasn’t always there

is louder than the part that knows it can be.

my body remembers.

before thought, there’s a signal—

this isn’t safe to need.

everything pulls up into my head.

i want it to float away like a balloon

so i’m not responsible for what’s happening below.

i learned, somewhere,

that reaching could hurt more than staying closed.

and i still move that way

before i have a chance to choose.

so now the word itself carries that.

not the warmth.

not the ease.

the risk of it.

i’m not really trying to change that right now.

i think i’m just starting to understand it.

like—

of course i tighten.

of course there’s a part of me that doesn’t trust it.

of course connection doesn’t feel simple in my body.

it mattered too much.

but there’s also something else that hasn’t gone anywhere.

i know what it feels like when it’s real.

and even if that’s not the first thing my body reaches for—

it’s still there.

and to me, that feels like proof there’s more of it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​