A Coward in Love
Bravery was once worn like skin,
a constant rhythm in the pulse of daily life,
unquestioned,
reliable.
But love —
it wove itself through the quiet spaces
and turned the world into something unknown.
There’s a fear in the way hands tremble
when love is offered,
as if to take it would be to betray something deeper —
the truth that it is not wanted.
Yet, it’s taken,
because refusal feels heavier
than the burden of accepting what is not desired.
Rejection follows quickly,
a reflex,
a way to escape the weight
of having chosen wrong.
Each decision sits in the stomach like stone,
untouched,
until it becomes too much to bear.
Words, once honest,
become something less.
There are words unspoken,
hidden behind masks worn for comfort,
for a peace built on the fragility of lies.
Truths become foreign,
forgotten in the dance of pretending
that it’s all fine,
that it fits,
when it never has.
The story changes with each retelling,
until even the teller loses sight
of what was once true.
Courage in other places has been plentiful,
but in love,
it has always been in short supply.
There is no shield here,
no weapon strong enough
to fight the quiet cowardice
that steals away the heart.
Here, in this moment of reckoning,
there is no victory to claim,
only the quiet acceptance of what is:
A coward,
not in all things,
but in love.
