Will I be plucked if I bloom?

reflection on intimacy, restraint, and the tension between being invisible and being consumed

It’s been a long time since I’ve been pleasantly surprised by someone.

There is a level of disbelief that occurs when I find myself on date two or three.

I can tell—mutually—we are trying not to be as excited as we are.

I have to set a slow pace when everything is screaming “fast and now!”

I can see us both playing this game, and it’s kind of cute.

I have to watch myself and make sure that it isn’t just the “me of this week” who is into someone.

When I’m in my motivated mode, diving into passion projects—am I still interested?

When I’m in my poetic solitude—do I find him a spark of inspiration, or a distraction?

When I pull away into my independence, is he an exception to my isolation?

I don’t want to speak from moments of heightened infatuation and find myself days later consumed by a completely different emotion.

I’m slow and cautious and restrained because I like to be sure—

not to hurt the hearts of others by being careless,

and not to hurt my own by acting without self-control.

But at the same time, I’m trying to practice and allow myself to express what I actually feel in real time.

Right now, that is very much the juicy fun of having a crush.

The strange experience where a highly independent, self-sufficient woman—

who prides herself in being the cool girl—

suddenly has her brain hijacked by the playing of future films.

Looped replays of the next time we meet.

Tiny flashes of possibility stealing focus because of the euphoric tingles that occur in the body.

The way I imagine magnets feel when they are at that perfect distance:

close enough to sense each other, not close enough to touch.

Buzzing. Reaching. Held in suspension.

You can feel the inevitability of impact,

but something invisible is still anchoring it all in respectable distance.

There is a tension—and I love that space.

Who will pull who in?

Who will be the first to break anchor and succumb?

Who will be the one to say something that changes the trajectory of everything?

And what pleasure, on either side—

to know you’ve created something so charged — desire so irresistible.

Or, to experience such depths of desire that it’s no longer worth containing.

Because that magnetic field builds into something that demands expression.

Eventually, the desire to know overrides the desire to control.

Eventually something must be said or done.

You’ve spent enough time in the distance to no longer fear allowing yourself to fully feel your feelings.

To no longer fear the utterance of truthful expression or the actions of true unity.

Space dissolves.

You give up cool and cautious to do the beautifully terrifying, vulnerable thing —

holding your heart in your hands and saying,

“Here it is—it’s strong, yet fragile. Please don’t squish it.”

The act of trust isn’t asking to never be hurt,

but to be held in hands uncupped.

But even in hands that hold openly,

do I have what it takes to hold myself the same?

Can I keep my individuality while combining and melting into unity with another?

Even where there is evidence of safety and unconditional love—

will I allow myself to open and bloom in that space?

Or will I keep myself contained in a bulb?

I say I want safety, freedom, and expansive love,

yet I feel there are still ways I’m waiting to receive this from myself.

I am at this magnetic tension with myself.

The fear of both how lovable and unlovable I may be in my fullest expression.

I hover in this space between—

longing to let the petals drop,

but afraid I might either be invisible,

or so radiant that I get plucked, uprooted, and placed in a vase.

What if I’m fully myself, and someone sees me—and walks away?

What if I’m fully myself, and someone sees me—and wants to devour me?

Being placed on a pedestal is just another form of dehumanization.

You’re seen not as who you are, but as someone’s idea of you.

Their fantasy.

You’re loved for how you make someone feel—and that love, as flattering as it is, becomes fragile. And heavy.

I don’t want the weight of someone.

I want the lightness of love.

I don’t want to hold their heart.

I want their heart to remain the center of their home—inside their chest.

And I, only the decorator—

here to bring breath and beauty and color to the space they already call home.

Pedal by cautious pedal.

Much love,

Your Blooming Bre.