Sometimes I feel like a poorly made vase, deformed, lukewarm, with curves where they shouldn't be. I've wanted to contain so much love that my body cracks. I give myself, I spill myself, I break myself. And even so, something in me still wants to fill up again. I wear a mask, not to hide myself, but so as not to offer myself completely to those who won't know how to look at me. There are parts of me that only deserve eyes that read without asking questions. Those who understand when I am silent, when I just tilt my head a little or close my fingers on the table. I cover my face like someone who guards fire. Like someone who loves slowly so as not to burn out. My cracks do not ask for repair, they ask for tenderness. My form does not seek to please, it seeks to remain. Every vase, every mask, every twisted body is a different way of saying: this is who I am when I love. When I choose, when I hold myself up, when I let myself be seen, but not all of me.