Hope That Blurs the Sadness
Some truths aren’t wounds…they’re roots. Twisted in the dark, but holding the whole thing up.
I’ve spent years being seen, yet never really noticed.
Laughed with, spoken to, but never asked how much of myself I’ve buried just to stay near people.
Even in school, even with people who knew my name… I was never known.
Not really.
And I don’t lust over every woman.
But almost every time I see one, a thought flashes.
Maybe this one could fix me.
It’s not sex I’m picturing… it’s escape.
It’s the fragile fantasy that she lives in a world where I’m softer, freer, lighter.
Where I’m not failing, not tired, not stuck.
It’s not obsession.
It’s imagination.
And maybe a quiet hunger for a different version of my life.
But I hide these things.
Because too much honesty makes people flinch.
Because when a man speaks on yearning, he risks being misunderstood…
As dangerous, or pathetic, or both.
So I bite down on my feelings and carry them like a stone in my gut.
I needed encouragement.
That’s all. A few voices in the right places, at the right time.
Maybe then I wouldn’t be carrying a graveyard of unstarted dreams.
I was once a dreamer with nothing to aim at.
And now? I’m just someone who keeps not saying what he feels.
People taught me to turn that part off.
To stop being emotionally available… because no one ever really showed up when I needed them to.
So I became a fortress.
But even a fortress crumbles if no one lives inside.
And I want my kids to know…
That being broken doesn’t make you useless.
But if you wait too long to notice the cracks,
You only ever get to meet the pieces.
And I don’t want to be just pieces to them.
There’s a kind of sadness in me that has no shape.
No name. Just… weight.
A mourning for the man I could’ve been
If life hadn’t told me to be quieter, smaller, safer.
And yet, I still have hope.
Even if it blurs the sadness.
Even if it’s stupid.
Even if I’m most peaceful when I’m alone…because that’s where no one’s asking me to explain myself.
Maybe I’ll write until the man I could’ve been
And the man I am
Look at each other and nod.
Not in regret.
But in recognition.