I'm scared when I talk to new people.

There is always the heavy pang of loss

like I'm opening a door I might never walk through.

The unspoken taste of 'what ifs' lingers on the cusp of my

tongue, reduced to endless possibilities—

steeping in a broth of hesitation.

My blood flows thick in my veins,

slow and spicy with fear.

I think about the words I could say,

the charm I cast could slip—

the looks I could give,

that might make them undone.

Fall for me, or away from me.

Folded into the patchwork quilt of 'I used to know them,' they are absorbed into nothingness.

I loathe that no one speaks nothing of the grief of almost and the phantom ache of what could have been—

The facts, issues, timelines and boring end credits.

We focus on what was once—

the curtains close and goodnight,

forgetting the magic of 'could have happened.'

I think of pleasuring the stranger at Club Zero —

their body lit up by red lights.

I think of kissing a mouth that tastes like midnight,

then tying them up in ropes of crimsoned shibari.

milky thighs painted in praise,

their moans caught in my palms

like fireflies I never set free.

Or maybe more macabre still—

they're in my bathtub.

Headless.

Blood spurting in sharp, rhythmic arcs,

painting the porcelain

like some terrible, beautiful final poem.

My real fear is not rejection—

but the weight of all the could-have-beens,

piled like rotting bodies in my chest.

I lay flowers over them like obsequies—

every interaction becomes a worship or wound.

In the end, there is me—

forever caught in gossamer threads of falling in love

and falling apart.