

"I know what this is.
I know the warmth of your skin, the way your heartbeat stumbles when we're this close, the comfort that comes from being wanted, even if only for a moment. I've spent years convincing myself that this was enough. That fleeting pleasure, passing affection, and temporary distractions could somehow replace everything I lost.
It never did.
The feeling always fades. The room gets quieter. The night ends. And when it does, I'm left alone with the same emptiness I've been carrying for longer than I can remember.
The worst part is that I stopped blaming the emptiness a long time ago.
Now I blame myself.
Because maybe the problem isn't that I haven't found the right person. Maybe the problem is that there's something missing inside me. Something that was lost so long ago that I don't even remember what it felt like to have it.
People talk about love as if it's supposed to heal you. As if meeting someone is enough to make all the broken pieces fit together again. But every time I try to imagine that future, all I can see is myself ruining it. Pulling away. Failing to give back what I'm given.
You deserve someone who can hold your feelings without questioning them. Someone who can look at your kindness and accept it without fear. Someone who doesn't spend every quiet moment wondering when it'll all disappear.
Collaboration with Lil jim bob, thanks for drawing with me, and I hope you don't mind the mini-story
why doesnt this have mor likes bro, so good (and its not just the art
As a person who loves art and writing/poetry? This is fire <3
"For a long time, I thought the problem was the emptiness. I believed that if I found something strong enough, something intense enough, it would finally fill the space that was left behind. That's why I kept moving forward. That's why I kept searching.
But as the years passed, I realized something worse: the emptiness never left. I just learned how to live around it.
I got used to things that come and go. To fleeting emotions. To moments that last a single night and disappear with the morning. It was easier that way. Nothing stayed long enough to matter. Nothing could break again.
What I never learned was this.
I never learned what to do when someone offers me something genuine. When someone looks at me with kindness. When someone cares about me without wanting anything in return.
Because accepting something like that means believing I deserve to keep it. It means lowering my guard. It means admitting that a part of me still wants to hold on to someone... and that's the part that scares me the most.
It's not that I don't want to accept it.
It's that I don't know if I can.
I don't know if I've become the kind of person who can still be comforted by warmth. I don't know if a heart that spent so long feeling empty can ever feel at home with affection again. And I don't know how long it would take for you to realize that you're offering something precious to someone who forgot how to receive it.
He stared at the gift in his hands, as if it weighed far more than it should.
For a moment, he couldn't bring himself to look at her.
"...I'm sorry."
His voice came out quieter than he intended.
"I want to thank you. I want to smile and tell you that this makes me happy..."
He tightened his grip on the box and lowered his gaze.
"But the truth is... I don't know how."
"It's been so long since someone gave me something they didn't expect back."
Collaboration with neponen after losing my previous account. I hope you liked the result and thank you for taking pity on me again and drawing with me.
WOAH OMFG PEAK🥹
@Yoshi YOSHIII THE GOAT
MARKIIIIIIIII MY BROOOOOOOO