Warmth and heat

I don’t doubt love.

I doubt my body.

My heart is brave

it keeps opening doors

even after it learned

what slammed ones sound like.

But my nervous system remembers

heat.

It remembers holding my hand over fire

long enough to believe

burning was the price of wanting warmth.

So when something gentle shows up,

something steady,

something that doesn’t flinch when I speak,

my mind runs ahead

and my body freezes behind.

I imagine futures

because imagining feels safer

than hoping quietly.

I build rooms in my head

before I’m sure the house is real.

Not because I’m naive

but because silence scares me more

than possibility.

Sometimes I mistake consistency for certainty.

Sometimes I mistake kindness for permanence.

Sometimes I’m afraid that if I let myself feel

without guarantees,

I’ll be standing in ashes again,

pretending I don’t smell smoke.

I don’t need to be saved.

I don’t need promises.

I just need time

to teach my hands

that not every warmth burns,

that some heat is meant to stay,

that some people don’t disappear

when you set them down gently.

If I hesitate,

it’s not because I don’t feel.

It’s because I feel deeply

and I’m learning how not to punish myself for it.