I fell for you shamelessly. I held back for so long: I fought it, I reasoned against it, I knew better.

But when you looked at me just so, squeezed my hand in yours and pressed your forehead against mine, I didn’t stand a chance. The more you asked, the more I told – I gave you tools to later use against me. I opened myself up, obliviously trusting you not to tear me to shreds. You paid close attention and knew just how to get to me, to wrap me tightly around your finger. You pulled my strings and made me dance because you were afraid to let yourself lose control.

You made me feel like I was too much. I loved too fiercely, thought too intensely, felt too deeply. And, in a way, you were right.

I loved you much more than you deserved, thought far too highly of you, and felt you to be more trustworthy than I should have. I was afraid of my own power, my own heart. I thought it made me seem weak or desperate.

Yet now I know that I am bold; my heart is brave. You were afraid of the grandness of my feelings, but it wasn’t me who was too much.

It was you – you were not enough.

I found a challenge in your stubbornness, in your games. I took a deep breath and tensed my muscles, bloodying myself against a boulder that would never budge. Sisyphus, insane to think the same attempts would ever yield different results, determined and frustrated endlessly to try and prove myself.

You would give an inch and it would feel like everything, like my work was paying off. I was prepared to take every weight from your shoulders, to crush myself with your burdens just to give you a second of relief. I would smile as I struggled, happy to help you, but never expected the same in return. I didn’t realize I needed someone who could help carry the weight of life from time to time. I couldn’t do it for us both, alone.

You were afraid to work with me rather than against me; you held us back, not me.

I would have given everything for you. That notion terrified me, but I knew that it’s okay to be scared; it’s about how you react to your fears that determines your character.

I was a fool for love, willing to risk it all. I held out my hand to you, heart pulsing in my open palm, and offered it to your closed fist. You knew that I would have made that leap because I was blinded by my own feelings for you, my certainty, my readiness. You manipulated me to that edge, sweet-talked me to the point of no return just to see if you could – and it worked.

But when the time came to jump, you were too afraid to even consider me, much less to choose me, and I fell alone. I fell, but at least I experienced the rush of wind in my hair.

You always played it safe – moderate, controlled, detached – because you are a coward.

Maybe I should thank you for being too weak, too afraid to open yourself up to me. You never deserved my boldness or my affection, I was just too foolish to realize it.

I’ve become wiser though, learned from my mistakes with you. I have found the value in myself, in my own heart, and in my extraordinary capacity to love. The fact that you still let fear hold you back – well, maybe I’m not one who’s the fool, after all.