Grave inside my head

There is a grave inside my head with my name already carved into it. Not because I think I’ll die.

Because I think one day you’ll look at me and the version of me you loved will. I wonder if you would still kiss me if I wore last year’s body.If my stomach softened. If my face grew tired. If my teeth fell apart. If time did what time has always done.. took beautiful things and asked them to survive anyway. I tell myself I go to the gym because I care about my health. That’s a lie. I go because I’m trying to outrun abandonment. Because every drop of sweat feels like another day I’ve convinced you to stay. Because the mirror has become a courtroom, and every flaw is evidence that I am becoming unlovable. I don’t fear getting older. I fear becoming ordinary. I fear the moment your eyes stop lingering. The moment desire turns into memory. The moment someone prettier walks into the room and my heart already knows I’ve lost before you’ve even looked away. People say love is deeper than skin. Maybe theirs is. Mine has always been buried beneath every insult, every glance, every reminder that bodies are judged long before souls are understood. So I starve the monster outside while feeding the one within. It whispers that love is not unconditional. That beauty is a contract.

That if I stop paying with my body, the person I love will eventually come to collect what I’m owed. A part of me knows none of this may be true.But fear has never cared about the truth. It only needs a mirror and someone worth losing.