You have to ask me out again.
I still want to know how you felt about broccoli as a kid, if you ever mistook it for a tiny tree, gave it a name, and built forests on your plate.
Did you ever refuse to eat it, or did you love it in a way that confused your parents?
Is that where it began: this quiet rebellion that led to you becoming a vegetarian?
I want you to tell me what you think about as you lie in bed at night.
Are your thoughts sharp-edged and circling, or do they rock you gently toward sleep?
Do they terrify you? Or free you?
Do they sound like your voice, or someone else’s entirely?
I still want to ask if you stay kind when someone pushes your buttons.
Can you recognize the moment anger arrives, and choose stillness over reaction?
And if your future child told you they felt different in their skin, would you meet them in that space without flinching?
I want to know if you're as attuned to the world around you as you are to the one within.
See, I wonder if you noticed my fingernails pressed so hard into my palm they left little half-moons.
I wonder if you caught the way I trembled as you spoke.
Do your second dates always touch these places, or was this unusual for you too?
Do you really wade that easily into the things that haunt you?
And finally, I want to know if you felt it too.
The palpable weight of our confessions, the depth we allowed ourselves to reach, that charged stillness hanging in the air like something waiting to be named—did it follow you home?
Because I need to know if I wasn’t alone in it.
And that’s something I’ll only know,
if you ask me out again.
#Thursday