A short piece I wrote a year ago.

What is it like to be loved?

I think I had never really thought about it. Instead, I used to ask myself why I don’t feel loved. When you go through difficult and heavy times, you tend to imagine the possibility of a different life — or at least a different day. A fragment of fantasy where you picture someone’s warmth: being held, being seen, being heard. Like looking into someone’s eyes and noticing the shine when they look at you. Those beautiful eyes with a glimmer of hope and love; that moment when you realize someone sees something in you: your potential, your identity, your warmth. The capacity to love and to be loved.

I wonder what it must be like. I don’t mean to say that I have never been loved; I had friends and I had family. But it’s different. There is something different in the idea of someone simply… choosing you just because. Without responsibility, without a bond that forces them one way or another, but out of pure will. It’s not a biological relationship like the one between parents and children. That kind of bond is chosen. I don’t even claim to know what it feels like or what it truly is, and I think that’s the point: I don’t have the slightest idea.

Maybe I don’t know what it means to truly love either. Did I convince myself that I was once capable of loving, or was it just a whim — a need for dopamine? It’s hard to tell. At the time it felt real; now it feels distant. I’m no longer able to remember what it was like to long for someone.

I would like to be the muse instead of the poet, even if only once. Maybe what I want is for someone to be able to enter my mind; not empty comfort, but understanding. Not just to support, but to lean on each other. To hold while being held.

I don’t understand why I think about these things so much. It’s not as if I actually have someone… I never have. And it’s not like I’ve been constantly searching either; I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t know how to be alone. On the contrary, I’ve withdrawn so much that I feel life slipping through my fingers. Everyone moves forward while I remain in the same safe, but lonely corner. It’s really… something.

I’m not against loneliness; I think it can be good, in moderation. Isn’t that how you get to know yourself, without someone’s constant influence? When we are alone, we are the purest version of ourselves… or at least, that’s what I believe. I’m not entirely sure how I see myself yet, but I have time to think about it. After all, I’m only seventeen.