Still, I Love

Author’s Note

This piece is for anyone who has been told—directly or quietly—that their way of loving is “too much,” “too slow,” or “not quite right.”

Difference is not a failure of love. Sometimes it is love, practicing restraint.

Still, I Love

on being different without withdrawing love

I don’t arrive the way you expect.

My edges don’t line up with your language.

I pause where others rush.

I feel things long after the room has moved on.

I ask questions that aren’t efficient.

I carry silence like a companion,

not a weapon.

I listen for what’s underneath the sentence

instead of the sentence itself.

I love differently, too.

Not louder.

Not cleaner.

But with my whole nervous system awake.

I don’t always know how to perform belonging.

I don’t mirror on command.

Sometimes I need space to stay kind.

Sometimes distance is how I keep love intact.

Still—

my love is not absent.

It is careful.

It is watching the door even while sitting down.

It is choosing not to wound,

even when I could.

I won’t always fit your shape of comfort.

I won’t always say the right thing at the right time.

But if I’m here,

I am here honestly.

Different doesn’t mean distant.

It means I learned another way to stay.

And this—

this is me loving,

without becoming someone else to do it.

Still, I love.

Still, I love.

Still, I love.

— Flower InBloom 🌱