I don’t want the kind of love that looks good in daylight.

When the room is too quiet.
When my thoughts are sharp.
When the old wounds start whispering again.
When I look whole on the outside but inside I am one breath away from falling apart. I want the kind of man who can feel that without me having to explain it.
The kind who doesn’t panic at the darkness in me.
The kind who doesn’t reach for my body just to touch skin, but to reach the ache living underneath it. Because that is where the real hunger is. Not between my thighs.
Not on my lips.
Not even in the heat he could wake in me with one look. It is deeper than that. It is in the part of me that has been lonely for so long it learned how to call itself strong.
The part that kept loving with bruised hands.
The part that still wants tenderness even after life taught it to expect damage. If you come near me, come real. Come without the performance.
Without the pretty words men use when they want access to a woman they have no intention of understanding.
Without that shallow hunger that takes and takes and still leaves her empty. Come like a man who knows a woman can be both sacred and starving.
Soft and dangerous.
Open and still carrying ruin in her chest. Touch me like you know I have survived things I do not talk about.
Like you understand that desire changes when pain has lived in the body too long.
Like you know the difference between a woman who is inviting you in and a woman who is begging not to be abandoned once you get what you came for. That difference matters to me. More than lust.
More than chemistry.
More than all the heat two bodies can make in the dark. Because I have learned that being wanted means nothing if I still feel alone inside it. So if you want me, want all of me. Want the mouth that can kiss you sweet and still speak hard truths.
Want the body that remembers pleasure and pain in the same breath.
Want the silence in me.
Want the fury in me.
Want the tenderness I hide behind sharp edges because too many people confused softness with permission to destroy me. And if your hands ever find me, let them find me honestly. Not gently because you are afraid of me.
Not roughly because you think force is passion.
Just truthfully. With that rare kind of hunger that listens.
That pays attention.
That can feel my hesitation before it becomes distance.
That knows a woman is not difficult just because she needs to feel safe before she fully lets go. I think that is what I crave more than anything. Not romance.
Not rescue.
Not another promise dressed up to sound holy. I crave the moment I no longer have to brace myself. The moment my body stops preparing for disappointment.
The moment desire doesn’t feel like a risk.
The moment I can lean into someone’s touch without some buried part of me waiting for the change, the withdrawal, the betrayal, the coldness that always seems to come after the warmth. That is the darkest truth I know. Some of us do not fear passion.
We fear what comes after it. The silence.
The detachment.
The way a person can worship your body for an hour and still leave your soul untouched. I have no use for that anymore. If you come to me, come with enough depth to hold what you awaken. Come with enough patience to stay when the fire in me turns into feeling.
Come with enough steadiness to understand that intimacy is not proven by how fast a woman opens, but by how safe she feels once she does. Because I am not interested in being consumed. I want to be known in the dark.
Felt in the dark.
Loved in the dark.
Not the polished version of me.
Not the easy version.
Not the woman smiling with her guard up and her heartbreak hidden under expensive perfume and practiced silence. I mean this version. The one with need in her voice.
The one with scars under her skin.
The one who still aches.
The one who still wants.
The one who can look at a man and think about surrender while still hearing every lesson pain ever taught her. If you can hold her, then hold her.
If not, leave her untouched. Because a woman like this can survive desire. What she is tired of surviving is disappointment.