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i don't like being attached to someone. it starts so small, like a dust that slowly gathering in the corner of my chest. i don't notice it at first. a thought here, a message there. suddenly, i start checking my phone too often, rereading words that don't really mean anything. i tell myself that it's harmless. but then the wanting grows — and i start hoping. i start imagining. and i hate it. i hate how every day begins to depend on something outside of me.
i hate the feeling of waiting. waiting for a reply, a glance, a sign that i still matter. i hate how my heartbeat begins to listen for someone else's footsteps. i hate how easily peace leaves my body when i care too much. it's strange—being attached feels warm, but the kind of warmth burns me slowly. i think it's comfort until it turns to ash. i don't like how i start asking invisible questions. what is he doing? does he think of me? did i do something wrong? those questions dig little holes inside me and i keep falling into them.
every time i hope, i lose a piece of myself. hope sounds pretty in poems, but in real life, it's cruel. it keeps you awake at night, staring at the ceiling, and bargaining with silence. it makes you read into small things — a smile, a tone, a pause — as if they hold secret meanings. and when hope breaks, it doesn't even make a sound. it just leaves a kind of emptiness that feels heavier than sadness.
i don't like being attached because it makes me forget who i was before him. it makes me smaller, like i'm shrinking myself to fit inside someone else's life. i start living in the space between his words, waiting for him to fill it. and when he doesn't, everything feels unfinished.
so i try to detach. i tell myself to breathe. i listen to music. i watch the sky change colors and pretend that's enough. sometimes it is. sometimes it isn't. but at least when i'm alone, my heart beats only for me. i don't have to wonder, or wait, or ache. i just exist. and maybe that's all i've ever wanted—to exist without the fear of losing someone. to live without tying myself to hope.
but even when i say i don't like being attached, it still happens. it creeps in when i'm tired, or when i least expect it. someone laughs a certain way, or remembers something small about me, and suddenly the air shifts. i feel it again — that soft pull, the beginning of another attachment. i wish i could stop it. i wish my heart had an off switch. but it doesn't. it keeps reaching out, as if it's always searching for something familiar to hold onto. maybe that's the problem. maybe my heart is too eager to belong.
and every time, it's the same story. i fall into the rhythm of someone else's presence. i start measuring my days by how close they feel, how kind their words sound. i tell myself it's fine, that i can handle it this time. but then the silence comes. the unanswered messages. the slow fading. and there i am again, staring at a screen that won't light up, pretending it doesn't hurt. it's pathetic, maybe, how much weight i give to something so small. but i can't help it. attachment makes fools of us all.
i think what scares me most is how it turns me into someone i don't recognize. i hate that version of me. the one who waits. the one who hopes. the one who forgets her own edges just to stay close. i used to think love was supposed to make you bloom, but sometimes it just makes you disappear.
so i remind myself every time, don't get too close. don't let anyone see too much of you. i keep my heart busy so it doesn't wander. i tell myself that solitude is enough. that it's safer this way. and most days, i believe it. i like the calm. i like not having to wonder.
but then, there are nights when i miss the chaos of caring. i miss the ache that reminds me i'm capable of feeling deeply. i miss the trembling hope, even if it always breaks. maybe that's what it means to be human—to hate attachment, yet crave it all the same. to keep promising yourself you'll never fall again, and still, when someone reaches out their hand, you find yourself moving closer.
even when you know how it ends. even when you swear you won't.