How To Do The Hard Things

How To Tell Someone you like them

March 2023

How cruel of me, to tell you that I'm a runner, and ask you for time. All just to once again, run away in the end.

I usually would look for clues to tell me if you cared about me. But when I think back and I try to remember your body language before, I can only remember your smile, and that you stumble when you laugh like the joke came and hit you from the side. And how you look all the way up when you think. How you watch me, how you wait patiently for me to react even when I go quiet. Your aloof reactions, the bits you'd play out physically.

You hold your tongue quite literally, you evade questions unskilfully, and you don't like talking about fresh emotions or your family. And I won't press as I usually would.

I don't know what you look like when you lie. And if you have I've never noticed.

I don't think you are this fragile thing, that I can't touch. I don't think you're this thing that needs to be fixed. I see you as someone who doesn't need me, and that's both scary and freeing at the same time.

I don't tell you this time. Maybe I'll get another chance to, eventually.