What I miss...

I miss loving you

without sharpening my thoughts.

Without spreadsheets of tone,

without footnotes on pauses.

I miss when a laugh

was just a laugh,

And not a variable,

not a test to see

if I was being studied

or sized up.

Somewhere along the way

This girl arithmetic became woman calculus;

derivatives of intention,

integrals of doubt,

solving for why

while pretending not to care

about the answer.

Now every kindness

comes with a margin for error.

Every silence asks to be proven.

I try to write equations on affection

until it collapses

under its own weight.

I don’t want to be clever anymore.

I want to be careless

in the old way…

With rose-tinted glasses,

Dreaming under the starlit sky...

The way that trusted

before it knew better.

I miss loving you

when my heart was enough,

And my mind

wasn’t always trying

to protect it.