I cherish the feeling of being smitten. the slightly taboo and completely exciting feeling of calling someone your crush. I adore the fragility that such a word holds. and the way that they can so easily make or break you. the tight knit sensation in your chest that is equal parts anxiety as it is invincibility. the gnawing feeling that eats at you alive as you wonder where they are and what they're doing when they're not in your sight. it's a flower in your hand, it's falling in the dark, it's basking in the sun, it's drowning in the depths. it's every feeling imaginable and lights your fire, and yet it leaves you numb and damp enough so that you don't burn yourself alive. it shapes you, takes its own form, but at the end of the day it's only a temporary force. a breeze rushing past you that changes you but doesn't stay with you.

I adore the feeling of a crush,
but I loathe the burden of love.

love is heavy, love is unforgivable (and yet so forgiving). if a crush was a daisy, love is a thorned rose, sinking into you as you grasp it, leaving you with holes where there didn't use to be before when you finally let it go. it has none of the docility of fleeting affection; it swallows you whole and forces you to surrender to its gravity. it changes you, but it settles into your skin and holds onto you.

I wonder if I was ever meant for it. I wonder why it is that I choose to hold onto thoughts, memories, and ephemeral moments of infatuation more than the person that stands before me, who is offering the world to me. I wonder if I have ever really been in love to start with. I wonder if I will ever be strong enough to hold onto that rose.