The Love I'm Still Searching For

He keeps calling it love. But love has worn too many faces for him to trust its introductions. Some arrived with hungry mouths, hands that reached for his body before they reached for his heart. They called him handsome, charming, kind. And for a while, he mistook being desired for being loved.Until morning came and he discovered that desire is a poor architect. It builds houses with no doors, beds with no room for sleeping, promises that disappear the moment daylight asks for their names. So he went looking somewhere older Somewhere softer.Back toward the place where love once knew him before he had learned to perform.His mother. She used to touch his forehead, like she was checking to see if the stars had returned.She listened to his dreams as though they were stories she had never heard before. She loved him before report cards, before salaries, before ambition was stitched into his skin. She loved him in the language of warm food, of waiting by the door, of asking if he was tired and meaning it. Now all that remains is his father's voice, Heavy with blueprints.Heavy with the expectation of what a man should become,How he can earn his place in the world, Success, Achievement. A future polished bright enough, to reflect a family's pride. And he tries. God, he tries. But some nights he wishes someone would look at himThe way his mother once didnot as an investment,Not as a bank,but as a person. So he keeps searching.For that familiar tenderness.For a love that does not arrive with conditions tucked behind its back. A love that does not compare.Does not keep score.Does not leave because he failed to become extraordinary.He searches for arms that feel like home,for eyes that do not inspect him, for a voice that says,"Welldone."Not because he has won.Not because he has succeeded.Not because he has become someone worth celebrating.But simply because he exists.Sometimes he wonders,if he imagined it all. If unconditional love was only ever borrowed from his mother's hands.If the kind of love that stays,that forgives,that only wishes for his wellbeingwas buried alongside her. Yet something in him refuses to stop looking.Because once,long ago,someone taught him what it felt liketo be lovedwithout having to deserve it. Ever since she left,he has been trying to find that heartbeatinside every embrace,every courtshipevery friendship,every woman,Still hoping that one day,someone will recognize the tired boy hiding inside.

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