It's always in the eyes.

You can rehearse the words. Perfect tone...

Stretch a smile wide enough almost to feel real.

But the eyes...

They don't follow directions.

I've stood in front of the mirror long enough to know.

Lift the corners. Hold it. Add a soft laugh. Try again.

Convincing... almost.

But then you look closer... and there it is.

The truth you tried to smooth over.

The weight you tried to swallow.

Sitting quietly behind something that was never meant to carry it.

Eyes don't lie... They don't know how.

And the worst part isn't that strangers might miss it... It's knowing the ones who love you won't.

They'll see it in a second.

That flicker. That heaviness.

The version of you you're trying so hard to contain.

So you start pulling back.

A little quieter. A little more "I'm just tired."

A little less time where someone might look too closely.

Not because you don't love them... But because you do.

Because it feels like too much inside your own chest...

How could you hand that to someone else and expect them to carry it too?

So you steady your voice. Keep your head down.

Ride the waves where no one can see them break.

And somehow you make it through the day.

Most days...

But there's always that thought, sitting just beneath everything...

How long can I do this?

How long before the eyes stop cooperating altogether...

Or someone looks long enough to ask the question you're not ready to answer.

And what scares you more isn't the truth being seen...

It's the possibility that it won't be.

The truth has already learned what it costs to be seen...

There was a time I let someone see it all.

Not the curated version. Not the polished answers. The real thing.

The cracks... The fear... The parts I kept folded away so neatly I almost forgot they existed.

And for a moment, it felt safe.

Like maybe I didn't have to carry it alone anymore.

Like being understood could actually exist without consequence.

But trust, once given, has a way of revealing what it was really invited in for.

What I thought was safety became access.

What I thought was care became information.

And the things I shared in my most vulnerable moments... were later used as proof.

As leverage... As something to hold over me when it was convenient.

That kind of silence after... It doesn't feel empty right away.

It feels like being slowly erased from something you were never fully part of.

Left standing in the aftermath of your own honesty...

Wondering how something so real could be turned into something so disposable.

So now I'm careful.

Not because I don't want connection...

But because I remember what it feels like to hand someone your truth and watch them turn it into something that doesn't belong to you anymore... That kind of loss teaches you restraint.

If I open that door again... will it be love waiting on the other side?

Or just another reason to close it for good?