Sometimes all I want is for you to hold me. Let me feel your strength. Let me smell you, feel your arms around me and know you’re real.

I want to tell you how much you mean to me.

But, instead, I’m frozen in silence. And it’s only in those moments when I think you won’t really look at me, and see how much I’m feeling — how much I’m hurting — or hear me if I say something, that any sounds escape my lips.

The words you do hear are often apologies. Beneath the hundreds upon hundreds of I’m sorrys, what I really want to say is that I wish it could be better for you.

Because you don’t deserve to share my misery.

You shouldn’t have to be my savior.

Sarah Doughty is the tingling wonder-voice behind Heartstring Eulogies. She’s also the author of The Silence Between Moonbeams