A Different Blue

by Amy Harmon

I shut off my anxious heart and my nervous head as dusk descended into another night, another meaningless merging, another attempt to find myself as I gave myself away.

had feared that if I opened the floodgates I would drown. But as the waves crashed over me, I was not consumed, I was swept up, washed, my soul blanketed with blessed relief. Hope rose within me like a buoy. And with the hope, came peace. And the peace calmed the waters and quieted the storm, until I sat, spent, bled out, done.

“I desperately want you to love me. I need you to love me—but I don’t want to need it, and I’m afraid that I need it too much.”