Runner

Most people think they want real love until they meet it.
Then they realize it’s not all candlelight and butterflies,
but accountability, growth, and emotional nakedness.
Real love doesn’t applaud your performance,
it dismantles it.
It sees past your ego, past your excuses,
and into the parts you’ve buried.

When someone sees all of you and still stays,
that rare kind of love feels unbearable
to someone who doesn’t feel worthy.
So they run.
Back to surface level.
Back to safe.
Back to numb.

But real love?
It doesn’t go away.
It lingers in the quiet moments,
reminding them of what they lost,
of what could have been,
because they weren’t brave enough,
or they lack the capacity,
to face their own reflection.
They run from the very thing that could have healed their pain,
preferring to coat themselves in a lie
than being fully seen and still chosen and accepted.

They would heal
if they stopped running.