Maybe It’s Not Me

Maybe you’re afraid of commitment. The way someone runs from a scary monster or a man with an axe. But I’m a girl with a cozy bed and a full heart and a hand to hold. I want to love you and I’m only half rolling my eyes when I say I understand how hard it can be to allow that to happen.

Maybe you’re not over her. The one before me or the one you haven’t been with yet. Someone who is magic and has better hair and wears makeup every day. Maybe she has a Pinterest board of her dream wedding and it’s all just easier to comprehend than this ethereal future I am shooting for. Maybe she wants kids. Like now. Maybe you are ready to be surrounded by people who tell the world what kind of man you are. Maybe you’re ready to be settled down and figured out and I’m not the one offering that to you.

Maybe you don’t like the way that I look. You picked me, you slept with me, but I don’t know the way that men’s brains work so nothing really surprises me anymore. I’m not crossing this off the list.

Maybe you’re annoyed my dog is such a brat. A woman you want to be with would be more disciplined. She’d have figured out how to get him to calm down when you come over and not make you feel like such a stranger. Or like, there is so much you’d have to do in order to fix me.

Maybe you don’t see the world the way that I do and you can already sense how exhausting it would be for us to agree on anything.

Maybe you’re just busy. Though we all know “busy” means something like “I have a lot I’d rather do” and like I told you when we were in bed with our whole bodies touching: I just don’t know what else there is, besides this.

Maybe I’m too nice. Maybe I touch you too much. Maybe I make you feel like I’d suck you in and you wouldn’t be able to catch your breath. Suffocating. Maybe you know some secret about me and I just don’t seem so great anymore. Maybe I never did but it was fun to dip your toes in the water and see how it felt.

Maybe I’m going to be able to not let it bother me this time. Maybe your reaction to me isn’t a reflection of me at all. Maybe I’m not looking into a mirror.

You could just be another person. I could just be someone you didn’t feel like loving.

I’m thinking, for the first time, it doesn’t have to mean anything.