She realized today
there are two people in the same story
reading from entirely different chapters.

She is all open pages.
Margins filled with feeling.
Ink that runs heavy with thought, with hope,
with the quiet courage it takes
to let someone see you.

He is a closed cover.
A book with a good heart inside,
but clasped shut.
Spine uncracked.
No matter how gently she presses her palms
against it, she is never getting in.

Each day she tries to soften into her affection,
to let it be natural, unguarded, real.
Each day he steps past it
as if it were furniture in a room
he has no intention of sitting in.

Not cruel.
Just unseeing.

And every time her offering goes unnoticed,
she folds a little smaller.
Retracts a little further.
Tucks the tender parts of herself back
into places he will never have to acknowledge.

Today she stopped trying because rejection hurts too much.

Because she has learned the pattern.
When she inches toward something deeper,
toward the place where questions might live,
where vulnerability might rise, he redirects.

Back to the body.
Back to the heat.
Back to the place where she is easy to hold
without ever being truly known.

So back in the box she goes.

Not because she wants to.
But because it is the only version of her
he seems comfortable with.

And if that is where he keeps returning her,
to heat without depth,
to touch without seeing,

Then that is where she will remain.

Because she understands now
it is not her heart he reaches for,
not her thoughts, not the fragile places she keeps offering.

It is her body.

The part of her that requires no acknowledgment.
No conversation.
No vulnerability.

So she will live there. A vessel in action only.

In the only role he consistently recognizes.

After all, that is what she is good for.

© 2026 Wynter Rayne. All rights reserved.