trust issues
There were some of us who ran from relationship to relationship because we were afraid of rejection. It could be a week, a month, or seeds of seasons scattered in a void but soon, for reasons we'd pay for in secrets and sighs, it was over again. After the warm breath on the back of our necks had cooled, there were still the attachments and the simplicity of elegant emotions rising too close to our inelegant surfaces.

And we rode those ferris wheel feelings for a while, until we were left too long at the top. We'd slam the gates in deliberate naïveté or play the card of love-sabotage when we meant to be playing for keeps. By getting out early we guaranteed we'd never be the one left behind.

We held in harmless hands a power and in it, a mistaken strength. In search of a rejection-free romance we took exceptional control of unexceptional relationships.

When the risks were counted and everything was said, done, lost or reduced, where were our own rejections aimed? ... At ourselves—with all four walls, if love could be contained, of romanticism's possibilities lying at our feet.

Mia Moore