Still, there is this terrible desire to be loved.

Still, there is this horror at being left behind.

Lesbian and sapphic relationships come under a lot of scrutiny. We’re not understood by our parents, our siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. Everyone looks at us with the question, “Why?” instead of seeing our hearts. The rest of the world looks at us either in disdain, or with a creepy enjoyment. Peace is hard to come by in these relationships, and the weight of them is heavy. Even our friends, whom we have known since childhood, may not entirely understand.

Not only this, but relationships among women are intensely passionate. Women understand each other in a way that men never will. The threats to women, the misogyny, and everything in between. We just get it. Our hearts are the same, our desires, our wishes, all the same. We are reflections of each other’s souls.

But with passion, comes intense heartache. Everything burns even deeper. Not only is this woman your partner, but she is your best friend. So conflict feels like the end of the world. Breakups feel like the end of the world. Like everything around you is collapsing. When there is uncertainty, there is an ache in your chest, in your gut, in your heart that is so hard to fix.

I oftentimes wonder why it is so hard for us to see the bigger picture. Or maybe this is just an issue within myself. Maybe this doesn’t make sense, but it is the way I think. How I process.

I’ve been told to keep everything private. My life, my relationship, my sexuality, everything should be kept for myself and myself only. But that’s just not how I operate. When I love, I want to love loudly, openly, and without reservation. Without a care in the world to who sees and who thinks whatever they’re thinking, and without a thought to anything else that may come with it.

Maybe this is why I have such a hard time.

I forgive you so I don’t have to see you again in front of God

I used to beg God to send me someone who sees my heart, who knows my soul.

Forgiveness never came easy to me. Everything feels so personal, like it is a fault of mine that things come to be what they are. Like I am lacking somehow, in some fundamental way, that makes love and life so very hard for me. Oftentimes, I feel like there is something fundamentally broken in me that makes it so hard for me to be with someone who sees me. Sees what I am doing, how difficult everything is but the fact that I still persevere.

I am still trying to discover who I am. This is something that those who suffer from PTSD feel, and it is a common experience. So when it is said that I don’t fit, I’m not compatible, or there’s certain things about me that aren’t right, I want to shout “I can be that way! I am that way! I am just learning how to get that way again!” and beg patience.

And in spite of my difficulty to forgive these transgressions, I always forgive. Faster than perhaps I thought I would. But the weight of it settles over me. Who am I, really? I know that I am soft, that I am kind-hearted, that I love deeply, but I also know that I am often so afraid of showing that love. Showing the easier sides of me and finding the childhood within me.

These traits will only come out with safety. When I know I am safe, and loved, and cared for. It takes time, God, I know it takes time for me to get there. But I get there, I know that I do. I just spent a lifetime protecting myself, making myself hard and callous so that I can keep myself safe. I was punished for my whimsy, I was punished for my childlike joy. I lost it through trauma, and I can feel myself finding my way back to it again. I enjoy life, I enjoy my friends, my family, my work. I feel it returning. I felt like I was in a place where I can see myself again, I can see myself returning.

Do you understand the work it took to get here, even to the point where I can see it come back? It is unimaginable internal work. Constant therapy, constant introspection. Do you know how hard it is for me?

I don’t want to beg. I know you can feel it, my longing, the aching, my need for love. I don’t want to beg. But oh god-Oh god, please. Please. Love me. Love me.

Maybe it is pitiful, my deep desire to be loved and understood. Maybe this is something that I have such lofty ambitions for, and perhaps I have too high of expectations.

Maybe it is unreasonable to ask for this patience while I rediscover myself and what it means to be me. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to anyone else, regardless of how they love me. I can feel the scrutiny. But why can’t you just do it? I don’t know. It’s so hard. I’m trying so hard. I want this for myself, and for you too. Be patient, please. I will find myself again, I can be myself again. I’ve gone through too much to give up on myself. Please don’t give up on me either. What you want from me is what I want for me, too. I can feel it inside me, within my heart, all I ask for is patience and love. But I don’t think you’re right, I think it just doesn’t work. Don’t tell me that. Don’t convince me that I can’t be the way I want to be. Don’t tell me what I can do for myself. This isn’t just for you, don’t you see that?

My mom always told me, “someone who truly loves you will never leave you.” Ever since she first said it, I’ve held her words next to my heart. They’ve become a mantra. Someone who truly loves me will never leave me.

I think this is especially true here. Someone will sit in the depths of my heart with me and understand that I am still learning how to live my life after years of trauma and traumatic experiences that have damaged my view of myself, the world, and people. I’ve crawled so deep within myself, that these few years later, I am still digging myself out of this grave. Clawing with my hands, dirt caked under my fingernails. A desperation, an intense desire to exist as I was, as I am meant to.

Love is not easy. We all have our own baggage, our own trauma, things that we’re afraid to sit with alone at night when the rest of the world is asleep and you’re by yourself in your room in the darkness.

I know that my worth is not tied to another person. Realistically, I know this. And yet, I want someone to see that I am worth sitting with, I am worth waiting for while I heal myself. I’m not looking for someone to heal me, I just want someone to sit with me, for it to be some proof that I am worth waiting for. That I am worth the wait. But I also know that I can’t convince anyone that I’m worth it. Either they see it, or they don’t. The latter is always crushing.

I am afraid of a lot of things, but mostly, most sincerely, I am afraid of being completely unraveled by you, and you finding nothing you want in here.

I feel like I’m running out of words, but my brain and my heart is still in motion. It is still everywhere, it is still spinning, it is still aching and beating.

This is far more in depth than I ever thought I would get on this blog, and yet, it is healing. I don’t care who reads this and laughs at my pain, I don’t care if it becomes a conversation piece for gossipers, for monitoring spirits, or fuel for those who hate or dislike me. This is my heart, this is my soul, and if you can read this and snicker, that’s on you and yours.

I know I am not easy to love. The protectiveness over my soul and my heart and the way I’ve been conditioned to protect myself has been called mysterious far too many times to be enjoyable. Am I that mysterious? Or are you just not looking hard enough? The way I protect myself isn’t some quirky trait that I use to my advantage. It is something that I wish I did not have. Something that I have been working to fix.

Don’t tell me I am mysterious, don’t gawk at my ability to keep myself so far removed, don’t romanticize it. It’s not something to covet, it is something to break down. It is for me to break down.

It’s like a turtle, or a hedgehog, or some kind of other creature with a protective outer layer. They huddle within themselves, relying on their outside to protect them from predators. And when they deem there is no danger and that they are safe, they come out. They wander around, they love, and they exist knowing that even though they’re now exposed, they are safe.

I shall lie down at home

and pretend to be dying.

Then the neighbors will all come in

to gape at me, and, perhaps, she will come with them.

When she comes, I won’t need a doctor,

she knows why I am ill.

I believe this speaks for itself. I have nothing more to say at the moment. But my pain is here, it is visible and drowns me and aches all over. I want the pain to recede, to disappear into nothingness, just a bad memory.

I want to look back on this pain in a week, in a month, in a year, and laugh. Look at how you suffered, I’ll tell myself. You thought there was nothing left, that this was the end of the Earth, and look at you now. The pain will always end, the sun will rise, and you will live. Look how we lived, look at us now.