Nothing is wrong.

Nothing is wrong.

That is what makes the sadness
so difficult to explain.

There is no betrayal to point to.
No cruelty.
No obvious fracture
I can press my finger against
and say,
here,
this is where it hurts.

You love me.

I know that.

I can see it
in the way you reach for me,
the way you soften,
the way you keep choosing
to bring your whole heart
into the room.

And I am here.

I am not gone.

But some days
I cannot feel all the way here.

Some days your love
lands in me
like rain on ground
that has forgotten
how to open.

And I hate that.

I hate the quiet distance
between what I know
and what I can feel.

I hate knowing
this is beautiful
and still finding some corner
of myself standing apart from it,
watching,
waiting,
unable to surrender
to the fact that nothing is wrong.

There is a sadness in that
I do not know how to justify.

A grief without an event.

A mourning
for the love I am inside of
but cannot always fully touch.

And then the thought comes—

not that I want to leave,

not that I want another life,

only that maybe
feeling nothing
would be easier
than feeling this much
and still wondering
why it is not enough
to make me feel safe inside it.

Maybe numbness
would ask less of me.

Maybe nothing
would not disappoint me
with the distance
between what I have
and what I can receive.

How terrible
to be held
and still feel the shape
of your own absence.

How terrible
to look at something good
and feel sadness rise
as though goodness itself
has reminded you
of every part of you
that still does not know
how to stay awake for it.

I do not think
I want emptiness.

I think I want relief
from measuring
how deeply I am feeling.

I want to stop checking
whether I am grateful enough,
open enough,
moved enough,
certain enough.

I want to stop turning love
into an exam
I am afraid I am failing.

Because you are not failing me.

And maybe
I am not failing you.

Maybe there are days
when love is not a flood.

Maybe sometimes
it is only a hand
resting beside mine
while I feel nothing
and wait for myself
to return.

Still,

there is a part of me
that wonders

whether feeling nothing
would hurt less

than being given
something this tender

and not always knowing
how to let it reach me.

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